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THOMAS HUGHES 


TOM BROWN'S 


SCHOOL DAYS 


BY 

THOMAS HUGHES 
, > 

X 
- \ 

'.1 




Illustrated 


PHILADELPHIA 

HENRY ALTEMUS 



Copyrighted 1895, by Henry Altemus. 


HENRY ALTEMUS, MANUFACTURER, 
PHILADELPHIA. 


CONTTKNTS 


PART I. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE BROWN FAMILY . . . . 

CHAPTER II. 

THE YEAST 

CHAPTER HI. 

SUNDRY WARS AND ALLIANCES 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE STAGE COACH .... 

CHAPTER V. 

RUGBY AND FOOT-BALL 

chapt5:r VI. 

AFTER THE MATCH .... 

CHAPTER VII. 

SETTLING TO THE COLLAR . 

CHAPTER VHI. 

THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 


0 • 


• • 


23 


» • 


• • 


45 

67 


85 


• # • 


108 


• • 


129 


• • 


( 3 ) 


151 


4 


INDEX. 


CHAPTER IX. 

A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS 175 

PART II. 

^ CHAPTER I. 

HOW THE TIDE TURNED 203 

CHAPTER H. 

THE NEW BOY 217 

CHAPTER III. 

ARTHUR MAKES A FRIEND 232 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE BIRD-FANCIERS 248 

CHAPTER V. 

THE FIGHT 263 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE FEVER 283 

CHAPTER VII. 

HARRY east’s DILEMMAS AND DELIVERANCES . . 302 

CHAPTER VIH. 

tom brown’s last match 320 

CHAPTER IX. 

finis 344 


TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL DAYS. 

BY AN OLD BOY. 

CHAPTER I. 

“I'm the Poet of White Horse Vale, sir. 

With liberal notions under my cap." 

—Ballad. 

T he Browns have become illustrious by the pen of 
Thackeray and the pencil of Doyle within the 
memory of the young gentlemen who are now 
matriculating at the Universities. Notwithstanding 
the well-merited but late fame which has now fallen 
upon them, any one at all acquainted with the family 
must feel that much has yet to be written and said 
before the British nation will be properly sensible of 
how much of its greatness it owes to the Browns. 
For centuries, in their quiet, dogged, homespun way, 
they have been subduing the earth in most English 
counties, and leaving their mark in American forests 
and Australian uplands. Wherever the fleets and 
armies of England have won renown, there stalwart 
sons of the Browns have done yeoman’s work. With 
the yew bow and cloth-yard shaft at Cressy and 
Agincourt — with the brown bill and pike under the 
brave Lord Willoughby — with culverin and demi-cul- 
verin against Spaniards and Dutchmen — with hand- 
grenade and sabre, and musket and bayonet, under 
Rodnev and St. Vincent, Wolfe and Moore, Nelson 

( 5 ) 


6 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DA VS. 


and Wellington, they have carried their lives in their 
hands ; getting hard knocks and hard work in plenty, 
which was on the whole what they looked for, and 
the best thing for them ; and little praise or pudding, 
which indeed they and most of us are better without. 
Talbots and Stanleys, St. Maurs, and such-like folk, 
have led armies and made laws time out of mind ; 
but those noble families would be somewhat astounded 
— if the accounts ever came to be fairly taken — to 
find how small their work for England has been by 
the side of that of the Browns. 

These latter, indeed, have until the present gen- 
eration rarely been sung by poet, or chronicled by 
sage. They have wanted their “ sacer vates,” having 
been too solid to rise to the top by themselves, and 
not having been largely gifted with the talent of 
catching hold of, and holding on tight to, whatever 
good things happened to be going, — the foundation 
of the fortunes of so many noble families. But the 
world goes on its way, and the wheel turns, and the 
wrongs of the Browns, like other wrongs, seem in a 
fair way to get righted. And this present writer 
having for many years of his life been a devout 
Brown-worshipper, and moreover having the honour 
of being nearly connected with an eminently respect- 
able branch of the great Brown family, is anxious, 
so far as in him lies, to help the wheel over, and 
throw his stone on to the pile. 

However, gentle reader, or simple reader, which- 
ever you may be, lest you should be led to waste 
your precious time upon these pages, I make so bold 
as at once to tell you the sort of folk you’ll have to 
meet and put up with, if you and I are to jog on 
comfortably together. You shall hear at once what 
sort of folk the Browns are, at least my branch of 


THE BROWN CHARACTER. 


7 

them ; and then if you don’t like the sort, why, cut 
the concern at once, and let you and I cry quits 
before either of us can grumble at the other. 

In the first place, the Browns are a fighting 
family. One may question their wisdom, or wit, or 
beauty, but about their fight there can be no ques- 
tion. Wherever hard knocks of any kind, visible 
or invisible, are going, there the Brown who is near- 
est must shove in his carcase. And these carcases 
for the most part answer very well to the charac- 
teristic propensity ; they are a square-headed and 
snake-necked generation, broad in the shoulder, deep 
in the chest and thin in the flank, carrying no 
lumber. Then for clanship, they are as bad as 
Highlanders ; it is amazing the belief they have in 
one another. With them there is nothing like the 
Browns, to the third and fourth generation. Blood 
is thicker than water,” is one of their pet sayings. 
They can’t be happy unless they are always meeting 
one another. Never were such people for family 
gatherings, which, were you a stranger, or sensitive, 
you might think had better not have been gathered 
together. For during the whole time of their being 
together they luxuriate in telling one another their 
minds on whatever subject turns up ; and their minds 
are wonderfully antagonist, and all their opinions 
are downright beliefs. Till you’ve been among them 
some time ^and understand them, you can’t think 
but that they are quarrelling. Not a bit of it ; they 
love and respect one another ten times the more 
after a good set family arguing bout, and go back, 
one to his curacy, another to his chambers, and 
another to his regiment, freshened for work, and 
more than ever convinced that the Browns are the 
height of company. 


s TOM BR 0 WN^ S SC HO OL DA KS*. 

This family training too, combined with their turn 
for combativeness, makes them eminently quixotic. 
They can’t let anything alone which they think 
going wrong. They must speak their mind about 
it, annoying all easy-going folk; and spend their 
time and money in having a tinker at it, how- 
ever hopeless the job. It is an impossibility to a 
Brown to leave the most disreputable lame dog on 
the other side of a stile. Most other folk get tired 
of such work. The old Browns, with red faces, white 
whiskers, and bald heads, go on believing and fight- 
ing to a green old age. They have always a crotchet 
going, till the old man with the scythe reaps and 
garners them away for troublesome old boys as they 
are. 

And the most provoking thing is, that no failures 
knock them up or make them hold their hands, or 
think you, or me, or other sane people in the right. 
Failures slide off them like July rain off a duck’s 
back feathers. Jem and his whole family turn out 
bad, and cheat them one week, and the next they 
are doing the same thing for Jack; and when he goes 
to the tread-mill, and his wife and children to the 
workhouse, they will be on the look-out for Bill to 
take his place. 

However, it is time for us to get from the general 
to the particular ; so, leaving the great army of 
Browns, who are scattered over the whole empire on 
which the sun never sets, and whose general diffusion 
I take to be the chief cause of that empire’s stabil- 
ity, let us at once fix our attention upon the small 
nest of Browns in which our hero was hatched, and 
which dwelt in that portion of the royal county of 
Berks which is called the Vale of White Horse. 

Most of you have probably travelled down the 


7 OM BR O WN'S BIR THPLA CE. 


9 


Great Western Railway as far as Swindon. Those of 
you who did so with their eyes open, have been 
aware, soon after leaving the Didcot station, of a fine 
range of chalk hills running parallel with the railway 
on the left-hand side as you go down, and distant 
some two or three miles, more or less, from the line. 
The highest point in the range is the White Horse 
Hill, which you come in front of just before you 
stop at the Shrivenham station. If you love English 
scenery, and have a few hours to spare, you can’t do 
belter, the next time you pass, than stop at the Far- 
ringdon-road or Shrivenham station, and make your 
way to that highest point. And those who care for 
the vague old stories that haunt country sides all 
about England, will not, if they are wise, be con- 
tent with only a few hours* stay ; for, glorious as the 
view is, the neighbourhood is yet more interesting 
for its relics of bygone times. I only know two 
English neighbourhoods thoroughly, and in each, 
within a circle of five miles, there is enough of in- 
terest and beauty to last any reasonable man his life. 
I believe this to be the case almost throughout the 
country ; but each has a special attraction, and none 
can be richer than the one I am speaking of and 
going to introduce you to very particularly ; for on 
this subject I must be prosy; so those that don’t 
care for England in detail may skip the chapter. 

O young England ! young England ! You who 
are born into these racing railroad times, when 
there’s a Great Exhibitiorr, or some monster sight, 
every year ; and you can get over a couple of thou- 
sand miles of ground for three pound ten, in a five 
weeks’ holiday; why don’t you know more of your 
own birthplaces? You’re all in the ends of the 
earth, it seems to me, as soon as you get your necks 


lO 


TOM OWN’S SCHOOL DAYS. 


out of the educational collar, for midsummer holi- 
days, long vacations, or what not. Going around 
Ireland, with a return ticket, in a fortnight ; drop- 
ping your copies of Tennyson on the tops of Swiss 
mountains ; or pulling down the Danube in Oxford 
racing-boats. And when you get home for a quiet 
fortnight, you turn the steam off, and lie on your 
backs in the paternal garden, surrounded by the last 
batch of books from Mudie’s library, and half bored 
to death. Well, well ! I know it has its good side. 
You all patter French more or less, and perhaps 
German ; you have seen men and cities, no doubt, and 
have your opinions, such as they are, about schools of 
painting, high art, and all that ; have seen the pic- 
tures at Dresden and the Louvre, and know the taste of 
sour krout. All I say is, you don’t know your own 
lanes and woods and fields. Though you may be 
chock-full of science, not one in twenty of you knows 
where to find the wood-sorrel, or bee-orchis which 
grows in the next wood or on the down three miles 
off, or what the bog-bean and wood -sage are good for. 
And as for the country legends, the stories of the old 
gable-ended farmhouses, the place where the last 
skirmish was fought in the civil wars, where the parish 
butts stood, where the last highwayman turned to 
bay, where the last ghost was laid by the parson, 
they’re gone out of date altogether. 

Now, in my time, when we got home by the old 
coach which put us down at the cross-roads with our 
boxes, the first day of the holidays, and had been 
driven off by the family coachman, singing “ Duke 
Domum ” at the top of our voices, there we were, 
fixtures, till black Monday came round. We had to 
cut out our own amusements within a walk or ride of 
home. And so we got to know all the country folk, 


VALES IN GENERAL. 


II 


and their ways and songs and stories by heart ; and 
went over the fields, and woods, and hills, again and 
again, till we made friends of them all. VVe were 
Berkshire, or Gloucestershire, or Yorkshire boys, and 
you’re young cosmopolites, belonging to all counties 
and no countries. No doubt it’s all right — I dare 
say it is. This is the day of large views and glorious 
humanity, and all that ; but I wish backsword play 
hadn’t gone out in the Vale of White Horse, and that 
that canfounded Great Western hadn’t carried away 
Alfred’s Hill to make an embankment. 

But to return to the said Vale of White Horse, the 
country in which the first scenes of this true and in- 
teresting story are laid. As I said, the Great West- 
ern now runs right through it, and it is a land of 
large rich pastures, bounded by fox-fences, and cov- 
ered with fine hedgerow timber, with here and there 
a nice little gorse or spinney, where abideth poor 
Charley, having no other cover to which to betake 
himself for miles and miles, when pushed out some 
fine November morning by the Old Berkshire. 
Those who have been there, and well mounted, only 
know how he and the stanch little pack who dash 
after him — heads high and sterns low with a breast- 
high scent — can consume the ground at such times. 
There being little plough-land and few woods, the 
vale is only an average sporting country, except for 
hunting. The villages are straggling, queer, old- 
fashioned places, the houses being dropped down 
without the least regularity, in nooks and out-of-the- 
way corners by the sides of shadowy lanes and foot- 
paths, each with its patch of garden. They are 
built chiefly of good grey stone, and thatched ; 
though I see that within the last year or two the red- 
brick cottages are multiplying, for the vale is begin- 


12 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


ning to manufacture largely both brick and tiles. 
There are lots of waste ground by the side of the 
roads in every village, amounting often to village 
greens, where feed the pigs and ganders of the peo- 
ple ; and these roads are old-fashioned homely roads, 
very dirty and badly made, and hardly endurable in 
winter, but still pleasant jog-trot roads running 
through the great pasture lands, dotted here and 
there with little clumps of thorns, where the sleek 
kine are feeding, with no fence on either side of 
them, and a gate at the end of each field, which 
makes you get out of your gig (if you keep one), 
and gives you a chance of looking about you every 
quarter of a mile. 

One of the moralists whom we sat under in my 
youth, — was it the great Richard Swiveller, or Mr. 
Stiggins? — says, “We are born in a vale, and must 
take the consequences of being found in such a situ- 
ation.” These consequences, I, for one, am ready 
to encounter. I pity people who weren’t born in a 
vale. I don’t mean a flat country, but a vale — that 
is, a flat country bounded by hills. The having your 
hill always in view, if you choose to turn towards 
him, that’s the essence of a vale. There he is for 
ever in the distance, your friend and companion; 
you never lose him as you do in hilly districts. 

And then what a hill is the White Horse Hill ! 
There it stands right up above all the rest, nine 
hundred feet above the sea, and the boldest, bravest 
shape for a chalk hill that you ever saw. Let us go 
up to the top of him, and see what is to be found 
there. Ay, you may well wonder and think it odd 
you never heard of this before ; but, wonder or not, 
as you please, there are hundreds of such things 
lying about England, which wiser folk than you 


WHITE HORSE HILL. 


13 

Icnow nothing of, and care nothing for. Yes, it’s a 
magnificent Roman camp, and no mistake, with 
gates, and ditch, and mounds, all as complete as it 
was twenty years after the strong old rogues left it. 
Here, right up on the highest point, from which they 
say you can see eleven counties, they trenched round 
all the table-land, some twelve or fourteen acres, as 
was their custom, for they couldn’t bear anybody to 
overlook them, and made their eyry. The ground 
falls away rapidly on all sides. Was there ever such 
turf in the whole world? You sink up to your ankles 
at every step, and yet the spring of it is delicious. 
There is always a breeze in the “camp,” as it is 
called ; and here it lies just as the Romans left it, 
except that cairn on the east side left by her Majes- 
ty’s corps of Sappers and Miners the other day, 
when they and the Engineer officer had finished 
their sojourn there, and their surveys for the Ord- 
nance map of Berkshire. It is altogether a place 
that you won’t forget — a place to open a man’s soul 
and make him prophesy as he looks down on that 
great Vale spread out as the garden of the Lord be- 
fore him, and wave on wave of the mysterious downs 
behind ; and to the right and left the chalk hills run- 
ning away into the distance along which he can trace 
for miles the old Roman road, “the Ridgeway” 
(“ the Rudge,” as the country folk call it), keeping 
straight along the highest back of the hills; — such a 
place as Balak brought Balaam to, and told him to 
prophesy against the people in the valley beneath. 
And he could not, neither shall you, for they are a 
people of the Lord who abide there. 

And now we leave the camp, and descend towards 
the west, and are on the Ashdown. We are treading 
on heroes. It is sacred ground for Englishmen, 


14 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


more sacred than all but one or two fields where their 
bones lie whitening. For this is the actual place 
where our Alfred won his great battle, the battle of 
Ashdown ^scendum ” in the chroniclers), which 
broke the Danish power, and made England a Chris- 
tian land. The Danes held the camp and the slope 
where we are standing — the whole crown of the hill, 
in fact. “The heathen had beforehand seized the 
higher ground,” as old Asser says, having wasted 
everything behind them from London, and being 
just ready to burst down on the fair vale, Alfred’s 
own birthplace and heritage. And up the heights 
came the Saxons, as they did at the Alma. “The 
Christians led up their line from the lower ground. 
There stood also on that same spot a single thorn- 
tree, marvellous stumpy (which we ourselves with our 
very own eyes have seen).” Bless the old chron- 
icler ! does he think nobody ever saw the “single 
thorn-tree” but himself? Why, there it stands to 
this very day, just on the edge of the slope, and I 
saw it not three weeks since ; an old single thorn- 
tree, “ marvellous stumpy.” At least if it isn’t the 
same tree, it ought to have been, for it’s just in the 
place where the battle must have been won or lost — 
“around which, as I was saying, the two lines of 
foemen came together in battle with a huge shout. 
And in this place, one of the two kings of the 
heathen, and five of his earls fell down and died, 
and many thousands of the heathen side in the same 
place.” After which crowning mercy, the pious 
king, that there might never be wanting a sign and 
a memorial to the country side, carved out on the 
northern side of the chalk hill, under the camp, 
where it is almost precipitous, the great Saxon white 
horse, which he who will may see from the railway. 


DRAGON^ S HILL. 


15 

and which gives its name to the vale, over which it 
has looked these thousand years and more. 

Right down below the White Horse is a curious 
deep and broad gulley called “the Manger,” into 
one side of which the hills fall with a series of the 
most lovely sweeping curves, known as “ the Giant’s 
Stairs they are not a bit like stairs, but I never saw 
anything like them anywhere else, with their short 
green turf, and tender blue-bells, and gossamer and 
thistle-down gleaming in the sun, and the sheep-paths 
running along their sides like ruled lines. 

The other side of the Manger is formed by the 
Dragon’s Hill, a curious little round self-confident 
fellow, thrown forward from the range, and utterly 
unlike everything round him. On this hill some 
deliverer of mankind, St. George, the country folks 
used to tell me, killed a dragon. Whether it were 
St. George, I cannot say ; but surely a dragon was 
killed there, for you may see the marks yet where his 
blood ran down, and more by token the place where 
it ran down is the easiest way up the hillside. 

Passing along the Ridgeway to the west for about 
a mile, we come to a little clump of young beech 
and firs, with a growth of thorn and privet under* 
wood. Here you may find nests of the strong down 
partridge and peewit, but take care that the keeper 
isn’t down upon you ; and in the middle of it is an 
old cromlech, a huge flat stone raised on seven or 
eight others, and led up to by a path, with large 
single stones set up on each side. This is Wayland 
Smith’s cave, a place of classic fame now ; but as Sir 
Walter has touched it, I may as well let it alone, 
and refer you to “Kenilworth” for the legend. 

The thick deep wood which you see in the hollow 
about a mile off, surrounds Ashdown Park, built by 


1 6 TOA/ BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 

Inigo Jones. Four broad alleys are cut through 
the wood from circumference to centre, and each 
leads to one face of the house. The mystery of the 
downs hangs about house and wood, as they stand 
there alone, so unlike all around, with the green 
slope studded with great stones just about this part, 
stretching away on all sides. It was a wise Lord 
Craven, I think, who pitched his tent there. 

Passing along the Ridgeway to the east, we soon 
come to cultivated land. The downs, strictly so 
called, are no more; Lincolnshire farmers have been 
imported, and the long fresh slopes are sheep-walks 
no more, but grow famous turnips and barley. One 
of those improvers lives over there at the “Seven 
Barrows” farm, another mystery of the great downs. 
There are the barrows still, solemn and silent, like 
ships in the calm sea, the sepulchres of some sons 
of men. But of whom? It is three miles from the 
White Horse, too far for the slain of Ashdown to be 
buried there — who shall say what heroes are waiting 
there? But we must get down into the vale again, 
and so away by the Great Western Railway to town, 
for time and the printer’s devil press, and it is a 
terrible long and slippery descent, and a shocking 
bad road. At the bottom, however, there is a plea- 
sant public, whereat we must really take a modest 
quencher, for the down here is a provocative of 
thirst. So we pull up under an old oak which stands 
before the door. 

“ What is the name of your hill, landlord ? ” 

“ Blawing Stwun Hill, sir, to be sure.” 

[Reader. *‘Siurm?'' 

Author. “ S^one, stupid — the Blowing Stone. ”] 

“And of your house? I can’t make out the sign.” 

“ Blawing Stwun, sir,” says the landlord, pouring 


THE BLOWING STONE. 


17 


out his old ale from a Toby-Philpot jug, with a melo- 
dious crash, into the long-necked glass. 

“ What queer names ! ” say we, sighing at the end 
of our draught, and holding out the glass to be 
replenished. 

Be’an’t queer at all, as I can see, sir,” says mine 
host, handing back our glass, seeing as this here is 
the Blawing Stwun his self,” putting his hand on a 
square lump of stone some three feet and a half high, 
perforated with two or three queer holes, like petri- 
fied antediluvian rat-holes, which lies there close 
under the oak, under our very nose. We are more 
than ever puzzled, and drink our second glass of ale 
wondering what will come next. Like to hear un, 
sir?” saysmine host, setting down Toby Philpot on the 
tray, and resting both hands on the “Stwun.” We 
are ready for anything ; and he, without waiting fora 
reply, applies his mouth to one of the rat-holes. 
Something must come of it, if he doesn’t burst. 
Good heavens ! I hope he has no apoplectic tenden- 
cies. Yes, here it comes, sure enough, a grewsome 
sound between a moan and a roar, and spreads itself 
away over the valley, and up the hillside, and into 
the woods at the back of the house — a ghost-like, 
awful voice. “ Um do say, sir,” says mine host ris- 
ing purple-faced, while the moan is still coming out 
of the “Stwun,” “as they used in old times to 
warn the country-side, by blawing the stwun when 
the enemy was acomin’ — and as how folks could 
make un heered them for seven mile round ; least- 
ways, so I’ve heered Lawyer Smith say, and he 
knows a smart sight about them old times. ” We can 
hardly swallow Lawyer Smith’s seven miles; but 
could the blowing of the stone have been a summons, 
a sort of sending the fiery cross round the neighbour- 
2 


1 8 TOM BROIVN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 

hood in the old times? What old times? Who 
knows ? We pay for our beer, and are thankful. 

‘‘And what’s the name of the village just below, 

^ landlord ? ” 

' “ Kingstone Lisle, sir.” 

“ Fine plantations you’ve got here ? ” 

“Yes, sir, the Squire’s ’mazin’ fond of trees and 
such like.” 

“ No wonder. He’s got some real beauties to be 
fond of. Good day, landlord.” 

“ Good day, sir, and a pleasant ride to ’e.’* 

And now, my boys, you whom I want to get for 
readers, have you had enough? Will you give in at 
once, and say you’re convinced, and let me begin 
my story, or will you have more of it ? Remember, 
I’ve only been over a little bit of the hillside yet — 
what you could ride round easily on your ponies in 
an hour. I’m only just come down into the vale, 
by Blowing Stone Hill, and if I once begin about 
the vale, what’s to stop me? You’ll have to hear 
all about Wantage, the birthplace of Alfred, and 
Farringdon, which held out so long for Charles the 
First (the vale was near Oxford, and dreadfully malig- 
nant ; full of Throgmortons, Puseys, and Pyes, and 
such like, and their brawny retainers). Did you ever 
read Thomas Ingoldsby’s “ Legend of Hamilton 
Tighe? ” If you haven’t you ought to have. Well, 
Farringdon is where he lived before he went to sea ; 
his real name was Hampden Pye, and the Pyes were 
the great folk at Farringdon. Then there’s Pusey, 
you’ve heard of the Pusey horn, which King Canute 
gave to the Puseys of that day, and which the gal- 
lant old squire, lately gone to his rest (whom Berk- 
shire freeholders turned out of last Parliament, to 
their eternal disgrace, for voting according to his 


SQUIRE BROWN AND HIS HOUSEHOLD. 


19 


conscience), used to bring out on high days, holi- 
days, and bonfire nights. And the splendid old 
cross church at Uffington, the Uffingas town ; — the 
whole country-side teems with Saxon names and 
memories ! And the old moated grange at Comp- 
ton, nestled close under the hillside, where twenty 
Marianas may have lived, with its bright water-lilies 
in the moat, and its yew walk, “ the cloister walk,” 
and its peerless terraced gardens. There they all 
are, and twenty things besides ; for those who care 
about them, and have eyes. And these are the sort 
of things you may find, I believe, every one of you,, 
in any common English country neighbourhood. 

Will you look for them under your own noses„ 
or will you not? Well, well ; I’ve done what I can 
to make you, and if you will go gadding over half 
Europe now every holidays, I can’t help it. I was 
born and bred a west-countryman, thank God ! a 
Wessex man, a citizen of the noblest Saxon kingdom 
of Wessex, a regular * ‘Angular Saxon,” the very 
soul of me “ adscriptus glebe.” There’s nothing like 
the old country-side for me, and no music like the 
twang of the real old Saxon tongue, as one gets it 
fresh from the veritable chaw in the White Horse 
Vale; and I say with“Gaarge Ridler,” the old 
west-country yeoman, 

“ Throo aall the waarld owld Gaarge would bwoast. 

Commend me to merry owld England mwoast : 

While vools gwoes prating vur and nigh, 

We stwops at whum, my dog and I.” 

Here at any rate lived and stopped at home,. 
Squire Brown, J. P. for the county of Berks, in a 
village near the foot of the White Horse range. And 
here he dealt out justice and mercy in a rough way, 
and begat sons and daughters, and hunted the fox. 


20 


TOM BROIVN^S SCHOOL DAYS. 


and grumbled at the badness of the roads and the 
times. And his wife dealt out stockings, and calico 
shirts, and smock frocks, and comforting drinks to 
the old folks with the ‘‘ rheumatiz,” and good coun- 
sel to all ; and kept the coal and clothes clubs going, 
for yule tide, when the bands of mummers came 
round, dressed out in ribbons and coloured paper 
caps, and stamped round the Squire’s kitchen, re- 
peating in true sing-song vernacular the legend of 
St. George and his fight, and the ten-pound Doctor, 
who plays his part at healing the Saint — a relic, I 
believe, of the old middle-age mysteries. It was the 
first dramatic representation which greeted the eyes 
of little Tom, who was brought down into the 
kitchen by his nurse to witness it, at the mature age 
of three years. Tom was the eldest child of his par- 
ents, and from his earliest babyhood exhibited the 
family characteristics in great strength. He was a 
hearty strong boy from the first, given to fighting 
with and escaping from his nurse, and fraternizing 
with all the village boys, with whom he made expe- 
ditions all round the neighbourhood. And here in 
the quiet old-fashioned country village, under the 
shadow of the everlasting hills, Tom Brown was 
reared, and never left it till he went first to school 
when nearly eight years of age, — for in those days 
change of air twice a year was not thought abso- 
lutely necessary for the health of all Her Majesty’s 
lieges. 

I have been credibly informed, and am inclined to 
believe, that the various Boards of Directors of Rail- 
way Companies, those gigantic jobbers and bribers, 
while quarrelling about everything else, agreed to- 
gether some ten years back to buy up the learned 
profession of Medicine, body and soul. To this end 


THE OLD BOY ABUSETH MOVING ON. 21 

they set apart several millions of money, which they 
continually distribute judiciously among the Doc- 
tors, stipulating only this one thing, that they shall 
prescribe change of air to every patient who can pay, 
or borrow money to pay, a railway fare, and see 
their prescription carried out. If it be not for this, 
why is it that none of us can be well at home for a 
year together? It wasn’t so twenty years ago, — not 
a bit of it. The Browns didn’t go out of the county 
once in five years. A visit to Reading or Abing- 
don twice a-year, at Assizes or Quarter Sessions, 
which the Squire made on his horse with a pair of 
saddle-bags containing his wardrobe — a stay of a day 
or two at some country neighbour’s — or an expedi- 
tion to a county ball, or the yeomanry review — made 
up the sum of the Brown locomotion in most years. 
A stray Brown from some distant county dropped in 
every now and then ; or from Oxford, on grave nag, 
an old don, contemporary of the Squire ; and were 
looked upon by the Brown household and the villa- 
gers with the same sort of feeling with which we now 
regard a man who has crossed the Rocky Mountains, 
or launched a boat on the Great Lake in Central 
Africa. The White Horse Vale, remember, was 
traversed by no great road ; nothing but country 
parish roads, and these very bad. Only one coach 
ran there, and this one only from Wantage to Lon- 
don. so that the western part of the Vale was with- 
out regular means of moving on, and certainly didn’t 
seem to want them. There was a canal, by the way, 
which supplied the country-side with coal, and up 
and down which continually went the long barges, 
with the big black men lounging by the side of the 
horses along the towing path, and the women in 
bright coloured handkerchiefs standing in the sterns 


22 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


steering. Standing I say, but you could never see 
whether they were standing or sitting, all but their 
heads and shoulders being out of sight in the cosy 
little cabins which occupied some eight feet of the 
stern, and which Tom Brown pictured to himself as 
the most desirable of residences. His nurse told 
him that those good-natured-looking women were in 
the constant habit of enticing children into the 
barges and taking them up to London and selling 
them, which Tom wouldn’t believe, and which made 
him resolve as soon as possible to accept the oft-prof- 
fered invitation of these sirens to young Master,” 
to come in and have a ride. But as yet the nurse 
was too much for Tom. 

Yet why should I after all abuse the gadabout pro- 
pensities of my countrymen ? We are a vagabond 
nation now, that’s certain, for better for worse. I 
am a vagabond ; I have been away from home no 
less than five distinct times in the last year. The 
Queen sets us the example — we are moving on from 
top to bottom. Little dirty Jack, who abides in 
Clement’s Inn gateway, and blacks my boots for a 
penny, takes his month’s hop-picking every year as a 
matter of course. Why shouldn’t he? I’m de- 
lighted at it. I love vagabonds, only I prefer poor 
to rich ones ; — couriers and ladies’ maids, imperials 
and travelling carriages, are an abommation unto me 
— I cannot away with them. But for dirty Jack, and 
every good fellow who, in the words of the capital 
French song, moves about, 

“ Comme le limacon, 

Portant tout son bagage, 

Ses meubles, sa maison,” 

on his own back, why, good luck to them, and many 
a merry road-side adventure, and steaming supper in 


TOM BROWN'S EARLY DAYS. 


23 


the chimney corners of road-side inns, Swiss chalets, 
Hottentot kraals, or wherever else they like to go. 
So having succeeded in contradicting myself in my 
first chapter, (which gives me great hopes that you 
will all go on, and think me a good fellow notwith- 
standing my crotchet,) I shall here shut up for the 
present, and consider my ways ; having resolved to 
sar’ it out,” as we say in the Vale, ‘‘ holus-bolus ” 
just as it comes, and then you’ll probably get the 
truth out of me. 


o 

' CHAPTER II. 

THE VEAST. 

A S that venerable and learned poet (whose volu- 
minous works we all think it the correct thing 
to admire and talk about, but don’t read often), 
most truly says, the child is father to the man;” 
a fortiori^ therefore, he must be father to the boy. 
So, as we are going at any rate to see Tom Brown 
through his boyhood, supposing we never get any 
further, (which, if you show a proper sense of the 
value of this history, there is no knowing but what 
we may,) let us have a look at the life and environments 
of the child, in the quiet country village to which we 
were introduced in the last chapter. Tom, as has 
been already said, was a robust and combative urchin, 
and at the age of four began to struggle against the 
yoke and authority of his nurse. That functionary 
was a good-hearted, tearful, scatter-brained girl, 
lately taken by Tom’s mother. Madam Brown, as she 
was called, from the village school to be trained as 
nurserymaid. Madam Brown was a rare trainer of 


24 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


servants, and spent herself freely in the profession ; 
for profession it was, and gave her more trouble by 
half than many people take to earn a good income. 
Her servants were known and sought after for miles 
round. Almost all the girls who attained a certain 
place in the village school were taken by her, one or 
two at a time, as housemaids, laundrymaids, nursery- 
maids, or kitchenmaids, and after a year or two’s 
drilling, were started in life amongst the neighbour- 
ing families, with good principles and wardrobes. 
One of the results of this system was the perpetual 
despair of Mrs. Brown’s cook and own maid, who 
no sooner had a notable girl made to their hands, 
than Missus was sure to find a good place for her and 
send het- oif, taking in fresh importations from the 
school. Another was, that the house was always full 
of young girls, with clean shining faces; who broke 
plates and scorched linen, but made an atmosphere 
of cheerful homely life about the place, good for 
every one who came within its influence. Mrs. 
Brown loved young people, and in fact human 
creatures in general, above plates and linen. They 
were more like a lot of elder children than servants, 
and felt to her more as a mother or aunt than as a 
mistress. 

Tom’s nurse was one who took in her instruction 
very slowly, — she seemed to have two left hands and 
no head ; and so Mrs. Brown kept her on longer than 
usual, that she might expend her awkwardness and 
forgetfulness upon those who would not judge and 
punish her too strictly for them. 

Charity Lamb was her name. It had been the 
immemorial habit of the village, to christen chil- 
dren either by Bible names, or by those of the 
cardinal and other virtues ; so that one was for ever 


TOM BROWNES FIRST REBELLION. 


25 


hearing in the village street, or on the green, shrill 
sounds of, “Prudence! Prudence I thee cum’ out o’ 
the gutter;” or, “Mercy! d’rat the girl, what bist 
thee a doin’ wi’ little Faith?” and there were 
Ruths, Rachels, Keziahs, in every corner. The 
same with the boys ; they were Benjamins, Jacobs, 
Noahs, Enochs. I suppose the custom has come 
down from Puritan times — there it is at any rate, 
very strong still in the Vale. 

Well, from early morn till dewy eve, when she 
had it out of him in the cold tub before putting 
him to bed, Charity and Tom were pitted against 
one another. Physical power was as yet on the 
side of Charity, but she hadn’t a chance with him 
wherever head-work was wanted. This war of 
independence began every morning before break- 
fast, when Charity escorted her charge to a neigh- 
bouring farm-house which supplied the Browns, and 
where, by his mother’s wish. Master Tom went to 
drink whey, before breakfast. Tom had no sort of 
objection to whey, but he had a decided liking for 
curds, which were forbidden as unwholesome, and 
there was seldom a morning that he did not manage 
to secure a handful of hard curds, in defiance of 
Charity and of the farmer’s wife. The latter good 
soul was a gaunt angular woman, who with an old 
black bonnet on the top of her head, the strings 
dangling about her shoulders, and her gown tucked 
through her pocket-holes, went clattering about the 
dairy, cheese-room, and yard, in high pattens. 
Charity was some sort of niece of the old lady’s, 
and was consequently free of the farm-house and 
garden, into which she could not resist going for 
the purposes of gossip and flirtation with the heir- 
apparent, who was a dawdling fellow, never out at 


26 tom BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 

work as he ought to have been. The moment 
Charity had found her cousin, or any other occupa- 
tion, Tom would slip away ; and in a minute shrill 
cries would be heard from the dairy, Charity, 
Charity, thee lazy huzzy, where bist?” and Tom 
would break cover, hands and mouth full of curds, 
and take refuge on the shaky surface of the great 
muck reservoir in the middle of the yard, disturbing 
the repose of the great pigs. Here he was in safety, 
as no grown person could follow without getting over 
their knees ; and the luckless Charity, while her 
aunt scolded her from the dairy-door, for being 
alius hankering about arter our Willum, instead 
of minding Master Tom,” would descend from 
threats to coaxing, to lure Tom out of the muck, 
which was rising over his shoes and would soon tell 
a tale on his stockings, for which she would be sure 
to catch it from missus’s maid. 

Tom had two abettors in the shape of a couple 
of old boys, Noah and Benjamin by name, who 
■defended him from Charity, and expended much 
time upon his education. They were both of them 
retired servants of former generations of the 
Browns. Noah Crooke was a keen dry old man of 
almost ninety, but still able to totter about. He 
talked to Tom quite as if he were one of his own 
family, and indeed had long completely identified 
the Browns with himself. In some remote age he 
had been the attendant of a Miss Brown, and had 
conveyed her about the country on a pillion. He 
had a little round picture of the identical grey 
horse, caparisoned with the identical pillion, before 
which he used to do a sort of fetish worship, and 
-abuse turnpike-roads and carriages. He wore an 
old full-bottomed wig, the gift of some dandy old 


TOM BROWNES ABETTORS. 


27 


Brown whom he had valeted in the middle of last 
century, which habiliment Master Tom looked upon 
with considerable respect, not to say fear ; and in- 
deed his whole feeling towards Noah was strongly 
tainted with awe ; and when the old gentleman was 
gathered to his fathers, Tom’s lamentation over him 
was ^not unaccompanied by a certain joy at having 
seen the last of the wig: “Poor old Noah, dead 
and gone,” said he, “Tom Brown so sorry! Put 
him in the coffin, wig and all.” 

But old Benjy was ybung Master’s real delight and 
refuge. He was a youth by the side of Noah, scarce 
seventy years old. A cheery, humorous, kind-hearted 
old man, full of sixty years of Vale gossip, and of all 
sorts of helpful ways for young and old, but above 
all for children. It was he who bent the first pin, 
with which Tom extracted his first stickleback out 
of “Pebbly Brook,’ ^ the little stream which ran 
through the village. The first stickleback was a 
splendid fellow, with fabulous red and blue gills. 
Tom kept him in a small basin till the day of his 
death, and became a fisherman from that day. Within 
a month from the taking of the first stickleback, 
Benjy had carried off our hero to the canal, in defi- 
ance of Charity, and between them, after a whole 
afternoon’s popjoying, they had caught three or four 
small coarse fish and a perch, averaging perhaps two 
and a half ounces each, which Tom bore home in 
rapture to his mother as a precious gift, and she re- 
ceived like a true mother with equal rapture, instruct- 
ing the cook nevertheless, in a private interview, not 
to prepare the same for the Squire’s dinner. Charity 
had appealed against old Benjy in the meantime, 
representing the dangers of the canal banks; but 
Mrs. Brown seeing the boy’s inaptitude for female 


28 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


guidance, had decided in Benjy’s favor, and from 
thenceforth the old man was Tom’s dry nurse. And 
as they sat by the canal watching their little green and 
white float, Benjy would instruct him in the doings 
of deceased Browns. How his grandfather, in the early 
days of the great war, when there was much distress 
and crime in the Vale, and the magistrates had been 
threatened by the mob, had ridden in with a big 
stick in his hand, and held the Petty Sessions by 
himself. How his great uncle, the Rector, had en- 
countered and laid the last ghost, who had frightened 
the old women, male and female, of the parish out 
of their senses, and who turned out to be the black- 
smith’s apprentice, disguised in drink and a white 
sheet. It was Benjy too who saddled Tom’s first 
pony, and instructed him in the mysteries of horse- 
manship, teaching him to throw his weight back and 
keep his hand low; and who ‘stood chuckling out- 
side the door of the girls’ school, when Tom rode 
his little Shetland into the cottage and round the 
table, where the old dame and her pupils were seated 
at their work. 

Benjy himself was come of a family distinguished 
in the Vale for their prowess in all athletic games. 
Some half-dozen of his brothers and kinsmen had 
gone to the wars, of whom only one had survived to 
come home, with a small pension, and three bullets 
in different parts of his body ; he had shared Benjy’s 
cottage till his death, and had left him his old dra- 
goon’s sword and pistol, which hung over the mantel- 
piece, flanked by a pair of heavy single-sticks with 
which Benjy himself had won renown long ago as an 
old gamester, against the picked men of Wiltshire 
and Somersetshire, in many a good bout at the revels 
and pastime of the country-side. For he had been a 


OUR VEAST. 


29 


famous back-sword man in his young days, and a good 
wrestler at elbow and collar. 

Back-swording and wrestling were the most serious 
holiday pursuits of the Vale — those by which men at- 
tained fame — and each village had its champion. I 
suppose that, on the whole, people were less worked 
then than they are now ; at any rate, they seemed to 
have more time and energy for the old pastimes. The 
great times for back-swording came round once a-year 
in each village, at the feast. The Vale “veasts” 
were not the common statute feasts, but much more 
ancient business. They are literally, so far as one 
can ascertain, feasts of the dedication, i. <?., they were 
first established in the churchyard on the day on 
which the village church was opened for public wor- 
ship, which was on the wake or festival of the patron 
Saint, and have been held on the same day in every 
year since that time. 

There was no longer any remembrance of why the 

veast ” had bfeen instituted, but nevertheless it had 
a pleasant and almost sacred character of its own. 
For it was then that all the children of the village, 
wherever they were scattered, tried to get home for a 
holiday to visit their fathers and mothers and friends, 
bringing with them their wages or some little gift 
from up the country for the old folk. Perhaps for a 
day or two before, but at any rate on veast day ” 
and the day after, in our village, you might see strap- 
ping healthy young men and women from all parts of 
the country going round from house to house in their 
best clothes, and finishing up with a call on Madam 
Brown, whom they would consult as to putting out 
their earnings to the best advantage, or how to ex- 
pend the same best for the benefit of the old folk. 
Every household, however poor, managed to raise a 


3 ° 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


‘‘feast-cake” and bottle of ginger or raisin wine, 
which stood on the cottage table ready for all comers, 
and not unlikely to make them remember feast time — 
for feast-cake is very solid, and full of huge raisins. 
Moreover, feast-time was the day of reconciliation for 
the parish. If Job Higgins and Noah Freeman 
hadn’t spoken for the last six months, their “ old wo- 
men ” would be sure to get it patched up by that day. 
And though there was a good deal of drinking and 
low vice in the booths of an evening, it was pretty 
well confined to those who would have been doing 
the like, “ veast or no veast,” and on the whole, the 
effect was humanizing and Christian. In fact, the 
only reason why this is not the case still, is that 
gentlefolk and farmers have taken to other amuse- 
ments, and have, as usual, forgotten the poor. They 
don’t attend the feasts themselves, and call them 
disreputable, whereupon the steadiest of the poor 
leave them also, and they become what they are 
called. Class amusements, be they for dukes or 
plough-boys, always become nuisances and curses to 
a country. The true charm of cricket and hunting 
is, that they are still more or less sociable and uni- 
versal ; there’s a place for every man who will come 
and take his part. 

No one in the village enjoyed the approach of 
“ veast day ” more than Tom, in the year in which 
he was taken under old Benjy’s tutelage. The feast 
was held in a large green field at the lower end of 
the village. The road to Farringdon ran along one 
side of it, and the brook by the side of the road ; 
and above the brook was another large gentle sloping 
pasture-land, with a foot-path running down it from 
the churchyard ; and the old church, the originator 
of all the mirth, towered up with its grey walls and 


£F£ OF FEAST-DA y. 


31 


lancet windows, overlooking and sanctioning the 
whole, though its own share therein had been for- 
gotten. At the point where the foot-path crossed 
the brook and road, and entered on the field where 
the feast was held, was a long low road-side inn, and 
on the opposite side of the field was a large white 
thatched farm-house, where dwelt an old sporting 
farmer, a great promoter of the revels. 

Past the old church, and down the foot-path, pot- 
tered the old man and the child hand in hand early 
on the afternoon of the day before the feast, and 
wandered all round the ground, which was already 
being occupied by the “cheap Jacks,” with their 
green covered carts and marvellous assortment of 
wares, and the booths of more legitimate small trad- 
ers with their tempting arrays of fairings and eatables I 
and penny peep-shows and other shows, containing 
pink-eyed ladies, and dwarfs, and boa-constrictors, 
and wild Indians. But the object of most interest 
to Benjy, and of course to his pupil also, was the 
stage of rough planks some four feet high, which 
was being put up by the village carpenter for the 
back-swording and wrestling ; and after surveying 
the whole tenderly, old Benjy led his charge away to 
the road-side inn, where he ordered a glass of ale 
and a long pipe for himself, and discussed these 
unwonted luxuries on the bench outside in the soft 
autumn evening with mine host, another old servant 
of the Browns, and speculated with him on the like- 
lihood of a good show of old gamesters to contend 
for the morrow’s prizes, and told tales of the gallant 
bouts of forty years back, to which Tom listened 
with all his ears and eyes. 

But who shall tell the joy of the next morning, 
when the church bells were ringing a merry peal. 


32 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


and old Benjy appeared in the servants’ hall, re- 
splendent in a long blue coat and brass buttons, 
and a pair of old yellow buckskins and top-boots, 
which he had cleaned for and inherited from Tom’s 
grandfather; a stout thorn-stick in his hand, and 
a nosegay of pinks and lavender in his buttonhole, 
and led away Tom in his best clothes, and two new 
shillings in his breeches pockets? Those two, at any 
rate, look like enjoying the day’s revel. 

They quicken their pace when they get into the 
churchyard, for already they see the field thronged 
with country folk, the men in clean white smocks or 
velveteen or fustian coats, with rough plush waist- 
coats of many colours, and the women in the beau- 
tiful long scarlet cloak, the usual out-door dress of 
west-country women in those days, and which often 
descended in families from mother to daughter, or in 
new-fashioned stuff shawls, which, if they would but 
believe it, don’t become them half so well. The air re- 
sounds with the pipe and tabor, and the drums and 
trumpets of the showmen shouting at the doors of 
their caravans, over which tremendous pictures of the 
wonders to be seen within hang temptingly ; while 
through all rises the shrill root-too-too-too ” of Mr. 
Punch, and the unceasing pan-pipe of his satellite. 

‘‘Lawk a’ massey, Mr. Benjamin,” cries a stout 
motherly woman in a red cloak, as they enter the 
field, “ be that you? Weill never! you do look 
purely. And how’s the Squire, and Madam, and 
the family?” 

Benjy graciously shakes hands with the speaker, 
who has left our village for some years, but has come 
over for Veast-day on a visit to an old gossip — and 
gently indicates the heir apparent of the Browns. 

“ Bless his little heart 1 I mustgi’ un akiss. Here 


GOSSIPING PRELIMINARY. 


33 


Susannah, Susannah ! ” cries she, raising herself from 
the embrace, “come and see Mr. Benjamin and 
young Master Tom. You minds our Sukey, Mr. 
Benjamin, she be grovved a rare slip of a wench since 
you seen her, tho’ her’ll be sixteen come Martinmas. 
I do aim to take her to see Madam to get her a 
place.” 

And Sukey comes bouncing away from a knot of 
old school-fellows, and drops a curtsey to Mr. Ben- 
jamin. And elders come up from all parts to salute 
Benjy, and girls who have been Madam’s pupils to 
kiss Master Tom. And they carry him off to load 
him with fairings; and he returns to Benjy, his hat 
and coat covered with ribands, and his pockets 
crammed with wonderful boxes which open upon 
ever new boxes and boxes, and popguns and trum- 
pets, and apples, and gilt gingerbread from the stall 
of Angel Heavens, sole vendor thereof, whose booth 
groans with kings and queens, and elephants, and 
prancing steeds, all gleaming with gold. There was 
more gold on Angel’s cakes than there is ginger in 
those of this degenerate age. Skilled diggers might 
yet make a fortune in the churchyards of the Vale, by 
carefully washing the dust of the consumers of Angel’s 
gingerbread. Alas ! he is with his namesakes, and 
his receipts have, I fear, died with him. 

And then they inspect the penny peep-show, at 
least Tom does, while old Benjy stands outside and 
gossips, and walks up the steps, and enters the mys- 
terious doors of the pink-eyed lady, and the Irish 
Giant, who do not by any means come up to their 
pictures ; and the boa will not swallow his rabbit, 
but there the rabbit is waiting to be swallowed — and 
what can you expect for tuppence? We are easily 
pleased in the Vale. Now there is a rush of the crowd, 

3 


34 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


and a tinkling bell is heard, and shouts of laughter ; 
and Master Tom mounts on Benjy’s shoulders and be- 
holds a jingling-match in all its glory. The games 
are begun, and this is the opening of them. It is a 
quaint game, immensely amusing to look at, and as 
I don’t know whether it is used in your counties, I 
had better describe it. A large roped ring is made, 
into which are introduced a dozen or so of big boys 
and young men who mean to play ; these are care- 
fully blinded and turned loose into the ring, and 
then a man is introduced not blindfolded, with a 
bell hung round his neck, and his two hands tied 
behind him. Of course every time he moves, the 
bell must ring, as he has no hand to hold it, and so 
the dozen blindfolded men have to catch him. 
This they cannot always manage if he is a lively fel- 
low, but half of them always rush into the arms of 
the other half, or drive their heads together, or tum- 
ble over ; and then the crowd laughs vehemently, 
and invents nicknames for them on the spur of the 
moment, and they, if they be choleric, tear off the 
handkerchiefs which blind them, and not unfrequently 
pitch into one another, each thinking that the other 
must have run against him on purpose. It is great 
fun to look at a jingling-match certainly, and Tom 
shouts, and jumps on old Benjy’s shoulders at the 
sight, until the old man feels weary, and shifts him 
to the strong young shoulders of the groom, who has 
just got down to the fun. 

And now, while they are climbing the pole in 
another part of the field, and muzzling in a flour-tub 
in another, the old farmer whose house, as has been 
said, overlooks the field, and who is master of the 
revels, gets up the steps on to the stage, and 
announces to all whom it may concern that a half- 


THE FLA YERS. 


35 


sovereign in money will be forthcoming for the old 
gamester who breaks most heads ; to which the Squire 
and he have added a new hat. 

The amount of the prize is sufficient to stimulate 
the men of the immediate neighbourhood, but not 
enough to bring any very high talent from a distance ; 
so after a glance or two round, a tall fellow, who is a 
down shepherd, chucks his hat on to the stage and 
climbs up the steps looking rather sheepish. The 
crowd of course first cheer, and then chaff as usual, 
as he picks up his hat and begins handling the sticks 
to see which will suit him. 

‘‘Wooy, Willum Smith, thee cans’t plaay wi’ he 
arra daay,” says his companion to the blacksmith’s’ 
apprentice, a stout young fellow of nineteen or 
twenty. Willum’s sweetheart is in the “ veast ” 
somewhere, and has strictly enjoined him not to get 
his head broke at back-swording, on pain of her 
highest displeasure ; but as she is not to be seen, (the 
women pretend not to like to see the back-sword 
play, and keep away from the stage,) and as his hat 
is decidedly getting old, he chucks it on to the stage, 
and follows himself, hoping that he will only have to 
break other people’s heads, or that after all Rachel 
won’t really mind. 

Then follows the greasy cap lined with fur of a 
half-gipsy, poaching, loafing fellow, who travels the 
Vale not for much good, I fancy : 

“ Full twenty times was Peter feared 
For once that Peter was respected ” 

in fact. And then three or four other hats, including 
the glossy castor of Joe Willis, the self-elected and 
would-be champion of the neighbourhood, a well-to- 
do young butcher of twenty-eight or thereabouts, 
and a great strapping fellow, with his full allowance 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS 


36 

of bluster. This is a capital show of gamesters, 
considering the amount of the prize ; so while they 
are picking their sticks and drawing their lots, I 
think I must tell you, as shortly as I can, how the 
noble old game of back-sword is played ; for it is 
sadly gone out of late, even in the Vale, and maybe 
you have never seen it. 

The weapon is a good stout ash-stick with a large 
basket handle, heavier and somewhat shorter than a 
common single-stick. The players are called ‘^old 
gamesters” — why, I can’t tell you, — and their object 
is simply to break one another’s heads : for the 
moment that blood runs an inch anywhere above the 
•eyebrow the old gamester to whom it belongs is 
beaten, and has to stop. A very slight blow with 
the sticks will fetch blood, so that it is by no means 
a punishing pastime, if the men don’t play on 
purpose, and savagely, at the body and arms of their 
adversaries. The old gamester going into action 
only takes off his hat and coat, and arms himself 
with a stick: he then loops the fingers of his left 
hand in a handkerchief or strap which he fastens 
round his left leg, measuring the length, so that 
when he draws it tight with his left elbow in the air, 
that elbow shall just reach as high as his crown. 
Thus you see, so long as he chooses to keep his left 
elbow up, regardless of cuts, he has a perfect guard 
for the left side of his head. Then he advances his 
right hand above and in front of his head, holding 
his stick across so that its point projects an inch or 
two over his left elbow, and thus his whole head is 
completely guarded, and he faces his n^n armed in 
like manner, and they stand some three feet apart, 
often nearer, and feint, and strike, and return at one 
another’s heads, until one cries “hold,” or blood 


JOE AND THE GIPSY. 


37 

flows ; in the first case they are allowed a minute’s 
time, and go on again ; in the latter, another pair of 
gamesters are called on. If good men are playing, 
the quickness of the returns is marvellous ; you hear 
the rattle like that a boy makes drawing his stick 
along palings, only heavier, and the closeness of the 
men in- action to one another gives it a strange 
interest and makes a spell at back-swording a very 
noble sight. 

They are all suited now with sticks, and Joe Wil- 
lis and the gipsy man have drawn the first lot. So 
the rest lean against the rails of the stage, and Joe 
and the dark man meet in the middle, the boards hav- 
ing been strewed with sawdust ; Joe’s white shirt and 
spotless drab breeches and boots contrasting with the 
gipsy’s coarse blue shirt and dirty green velveteen 
breeches and leather gaiters. Joe is evidently turn- 
ing up his nose at the other, and half insulted at 
having to break his head. 

The gipsy is a tough active fellow, but not very 
skilful with his weapon, so that Joe’s weight and 
strength tell in a minute ; he is too heavy metal for 
him : whack, whack, whack, come his blows, break- 
ing down the gipsy’s guard, and threatening to reach 
his head every moment. There it is at last — 
“Blood, blood!” shout the spectators, as a thin 
stream oozes out slowly from the roots of his hair, 
and the umpire calls to them to stop. The gipsy 
scowls at Joe under his brows in no pleasant manner, 
while Master Joe swaggers about, and makes atti- 
tudes, and thinks himself, and shows that he thinks 
himself, the greatest man in the field. 

Then follow several stout sets-to between the other 
candidates for the new hat, and at last come the 
shepherd and Willum Smith. This is the crack 


TOM BROIVN^S SCHOOL DAYS. 


3 ^ 

set-to of the day. They are both in famous wind, 
and there is no crying “hold the shepherd is an 
old hand and up to all the dodges ; he tries them 
one after another, and very nearly gets at Willum’s 
head by coming in near, and playing over his guard 
at the half-stick, but somehow Willum blunders 
through, catching the stick on his shoulders, neck, 
sides, every now and then, anywhere but on his 
head, and his returns are heavy and straight, and he 
is the youngest gamester and a favourite in the 
parish, and his gallant stand brings down shouts and 
cheers, and the knowing ones think he’ll win if he 
keeps steady, and Tom on the groom’s shoulder 
holds his hands together, and can hardly breathe for 
excitement. 

Alas for Willum ! his sweetheart getting tired of 
female companionship has been hunting the booths 
to see where he can have got to, and now catches 
sight of him on the stage in full combat. She 
flushes and turns pale ; her old aunt catches hold of 
her, saying, “Bless’ee, child, doan’t’ee goa’nigst it ; ” 
but she breaks away and runs towards the stage 
calling his name. Willum keeps up his guard 
stoutly, but glances for a moment towards the voice. 
No guard will do it, Willum, without the eye. The 
shepherd steps round and strikes, and the point of 
his stick just grazes Willum’s forehead, fetching off* 
the skin, and the blood flows, and the umpire cries 
“Hold,” and poor Willum’s chance is up for the 
day. But he takes it very well, and puts on his old 
hat and coat, and goes down to be scolded by his 
sweetheart, and led away out of mischief. Tom 
hears him say coaxingly, as he walks off — 

“ Now doan’t’ee, Rachel ! I wouldn’t ha’ done 
it, only I wanted summut to buy’ee a fairing 


A NEiV ^^OLD gamester: 


39 

wi’, and I be as vlush o’ money as a twod o’ veath- 
ers. ’ ’ 

“Thee mind what I tells’ee,” rejoins Rachel 
saucily, “and doan’t’ee kep blethering about fair- 
ings.” Tom resolves in his heart to give Willum 
the remainder of his two shillings after the back- 
swording. 

Joe Willis has all the luck to-day. His next bout 
ends in an easy victory, while the shepherd has a 
tough job to break his second head; and when Joe 
and the shepherd meet, and the whole circle expect 
and hope to see him get a broken crown, the shep- 
herd slips in the first round and falls against the rails, 
hurting himself so that the old farmer will not let 
him go on, much as he wishes to try; and that im- 
postor Joe (for he is certainly not the best man) 
struts and swaggers about the stage the conquering 
gam.ester, though he hasn’t had five minutes really 
trying play. 

Joe takes the new hat in his hand, and puts the 
money into it, and then as if a thought strikes him 
and he doesn’t think his victory quite acknowledged 
down below, walks to each face of the stage, and 
looks down, shaking the money, and chaffing, as how 
he’ll stake hat and money and another half-sovereign 
“agin any gamester as hasn’t played already.” 
Cunning Joe ! he thus gets rid of Willum and the 
shepherd, who is quite fresh again. 

No one seems to like the offer, and the umpire is 
just coming down, when a queer old hat, something 
like a Doctor of Divinity’s shovel, is chucked on to 
the stage, and an elderly quiet man steps out, who 
has been watching the play, saying he should like to 
cross a stick wi’ the prodigalish young chap. 

The crowd cheer and begin to chaff Joe, who turns 


40 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


up liis nose and swaggers across to the sticks. 
“ Imp’dent old wosbird !” says he, break the 

bald head on un to the truth.” 

The old boy is very bald certainly, and the blood 
will show fast enough if you can touch him, Joe. 

He takes off his long flapped coat, and stands up 
in a long flapped waistcoat, which Sir Roger de Cov- 
erley might have worn when it was new, picks out a 
stick, and is ready for Master Joe, who loses no time, 
but begins his old game, whack, whack, whack, try- 
ing to break down the old man’s guard by sheer 
strength. But it won’t do, — he catches every blow 
close by the basket, and though he is rather stiff in 
his returns, after a minute walks Joe about the stage, 
and is clearly a staunch old gamester. Joe now 
comes in, and making the most of his height, tries 
to get over the old man’s guard at half-stick, by 
which he takes a smart blow in the ribs and another 
on the elbow and nothing more. And now he loses 
wind and begins to puff, and the crowd laugh: ‘‘Cry 
‘hold,’ Joe — thee’st met thy match!” Instead of 
taking good advice and getting his wind, Joe 
loses his temper, and strikes at the old man’s 
body. 

“Blood, blood!” shout the crowd, “Joe’s head’s 
broke ! ’ * 

Who’d have thought it? How did it come? That 
body-blow left Joe’s head unguarded for a moment, 
and with one turn of the wrist the old gentleman has 
nicked a neat little bit of skin off the middle of his 
forehead, and though he won’t believe it, and ham- 
mers on for three more blows despite of the shouts, 
is then convinced by the blood trickling into his 
eye. Poor Joe is sadly crestfallen, and fumbles in 
his pocket for the other half-sovereign, but the old 


THE REVELS ARE OVER, 


41 


gamester won’t have it. ‘‘Keep thy money, man, 
and gi’s thy hand,” says he, and they shake hands; 
but the old gamester gives the new hat to the shep- 
herd, and, soon after, the half-sovereign to Willum, 
who thereout decorates his sweetheart with ribbons to 
his heart’s content. 

“ Who can a be?” “ Wur do a cum from?” ask 
the crowd. And it soon flies about that the old west- 
country champion, who played a tie with Shaw the 
Life-guardsman at “ Vizes ” twenty years before, has 
broken Joe Willis’s crown for him. 

How my country fair is spinning out! I see I must 
skip the wrestling, and the boys jumping in sacks, 
and rolling wheelbarrows blindfolded : and the 
donkey-race, and the fight which arose thereout, 
marring the otherwise peaceful “ veast ; ” and the 
frightened scurrying away of the female feast-goers, 
and descent of Squire Brown, summoned by the wife 
of one of the combatants to stop it ; which he 
wouldn’t start to do till he had got on his top-boots. 
Tom is carried away by old Benjy, dog-tired and sur- 
feited with pleasure, as the evening comes on and the 
dancing begins in the booths; and though Willum 
and Rachel in her new ribbons and many another 
good lad and lass don’t come away just yet, but have 
a good step out, and enjoy it, and get no harm 
thereby, yet we, being sober folk, will just stroll away 
up through the churchyard, and by the old yew-tree; 
and get a quiet dish of tea and a parle with our 
gossips, as the steady ones of our village do, and so 
to bed. 

That’s the fair true sketch, as far as it goes, of one 
of the larger village feasts in the Vale of Berks, when 
I was a little boy. They are much altered for the 
worse, lam told. I haven’t been atone these twenty 


42 


TOAf BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


years, but I have been at the statute fairs in some 
west-country towns, where servants are hired, and 
greater abominations cannot be found. What village 
feasts have come to, I fear, in many cases, may be 
read in the pages of Yeast, (though I never saw one 
so bad — thank God !) 

Do you want to know why ? It is because, as I 
said before, gentlefolk and farmers have left off join- 
ing or taking an interest in them. They don’t either 
subscribe to the prizes, or go down and enjoy the 
fun. 

Is this a good or a bad sign? I hardly know. Bad, 
sure enough, if it only arises from the further separa- 
tion of classes consequent on twenty years of buying 
-cheap and selling dear, and its accompanying over- 
work ; or because our sons and daughters have their 
hearts in London Club-life, or so-called Society, in- 
stead of in the old English home duties ; because 
farmers’ sons are apeing fine gentlemen, and farmers’ 
•daughters caring more to make bad foreign music 
than good English cheeses. Good, perhaps, if it be 
that the time for the old veast ” has gone by, that 
it is no longer the healthy sound expression of Eng- 
lish country holiday-making ; that, in fact, we as a 
nation have got beyond it, and are in a transition 
state, feeling for and soon likely to find some better 
substitute. 

Only I have just got this to say before I quit the 
text. Don’t let reformers of any sort think that 
they are going really to lay hold of the working boys 
and young men of England by any educational grap- 
nel whatever, which hasn’t some bona fide equivalent 
for the games of the old country “veast” in it; 
something to put in the place of the back-swording 
and wrestling and racing ; something to try the 


ADVICE TO YOUNG SWELLS. 


43 


muscles of men’s bodies, and the endurance of their 
hearts, and to make them rejoice in their strength. 
In all the new-fangled comprehensive plans which I 
see, this is all left out : and the consequence is, that 
your great Mechanics’ Institutes end in intellectual 
priggism, and your Christian Young Men’s Societies 
in religious Pharisaism. 

Well, well,. we must bide our time. Life isn’t all 
beer and skittles, — but beer and skittles, or some- 
thing better of the same sort, must form a good part 
of every Englishman’s education. If I could only 
drive this into the heads of you rising Parliamentary 
Lords, and young swells who “ have your ways made 
for you,” as the saying is, — you, who frequent pala- 
ver houses and West-end clubs, waiting always 
ready to strap yourselves on to the back of poor 
dear old John, as soon as the present used-up lot 
(your fathers and uncles), who sit there on the great 
Parliamentary-majorities’ pack-saddle, and make be- 
lief they’re guiding him with their red-tape bridle, 
tumble, or have to be lifted off! 

I don’t think much of you yet — I wish I could ; 
though you do go talking and lecturing up and down 
the country to crowded audiences, and are busy 
with all sorts of philanthropic intellectualism, and 
circulating libraries and museums, and Heaven only 
knows what besides ; and try to make us think, 
through newspaper reports, that you are, even as we, 
of the working classes. But, bless your hearts, we 
“ ain’t so green,” though lots of us of all sorts toady 
you enough certainly, and try to make you think 
so. 

I’ll tell you what to do now : instead of all this 
trumpeting and fuss, which is only the old Parliamen- 
tary-majority dodge over again — ^just you go each of 


44 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS, 


you (you’ve plenty of time for it, if you’ll only give up 
t’other line,) and quietly make three or four friends, 
real friends, among us. You’ll find a little trouble 
in getting at the right sort, because such birds don’t 
come lightly to your lure — but found they may be. 
Take, say, two out of the professions, lawyer, parson, 
doctor — which you will ; one out of trade, and 
three or four out of the working classes — tailors, 
engineers, carpenters, engravers, — there’s plenty of 
choice. Let them be men of your own ages, mind, 
and ask them to your homes ; introduce them to 
your wives and sisters, and get introduced to theirs : 
give them good dinners, and talk to them about 
what is really at the bottom of your heart, and box, 
and run, and row with them, when you have a 
chance. Do all this honestly as man to man, and 
by the time you come to ride old John, you’ll be 
able to do something more than sit on his back, and' 
may feel his mouth with some stronger bridle than 
a red-tape one. 

Ah, if you only would ! ’ But you have got too far 
out of the right rut, I fear. Too much over-civiliza- 
tion, and the deceitfulness of riches. It is easier 
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. 
More’s the pity. I never came across but two of 
you, who could value a man wholly and solely for 
what was in him ; who thought themselves verily 
and indeed of the same flesh and blood as John 
Jones the attorney’s clerk, and Bill Smith the cos- 
termonger, and could act as if they thought so. 


SUNDRY WARS AND ALLIANCES. 


45 


CHAPTER III. 

SUNDRY WARS AND ALLIANCES. 

P OOR old Benjy ! the ^^rheumatiz” has much to 
answer for all through English country sides, 
but it never played a scurvier trick than in 
laying thee by the heels, when thou wast yet in a 
green old age. The enemy, which had long been 
carrying on a sort of border warfare, and trying his 
strength against Benjy ’s on the battle-field, of his 
hands and legs, now, mustering all his forces began 
laying siege to the citadel, and overrunning the 
whole country. Benjy was seized in the back and 
loins ; and though he made strong and brave fight, 
it was soon clear enough that all which could be 
beaten of poor old Benjy would have to give in 
before long. 

It was as much as he could do now, with the help 
of his big stick and frequent stops, to hobble down 
to the canal with Master Tom, and bait his hook for 
him, and sit and watch his angling, telling him 
quaint old country stories ; and when Tom had no 
sport, and detecting a rat some hundred yards or so 
off along the bank, would rush off with Toby the 
turnspit terrier, his other faithful companion, in 
bootless pursuit, he might have tumbled in and been 
drowned twenty times over before Benjy could have 
got near him. 

Cheery and unmindful of himself as Benjy was, 
this loss of locomotive power bothered him greatly. 
He had got a new object in his old age, and was just 
beginning to think himself useful again in the w^orld. 


46 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


He feared much too lest Master Tom should fall 
back again into the hands of Charity and the women. 
So he tried everything he could think of to get set 
up. He even went an expedition to the dwelling of 
one of those queer mortals, who — say what we will,, 
and reason how we will — do cure simple people of 
diseases of ane kind or another without the aid of 
physic ; and so get to themselves the reputation of 
using charms, and inspire for themselves and their 
dwellings great respect, not to say fear, amongst a 
simple folk such as the dwellers in the Vale of White 
Horse. Where this power, or whatever else it may 
be, descends upon the shoulders of a man whose 
ways are not straight, he becomes a nuisance to the 
neighbourhood ; a receiver of stolen goods, giver of 
love-potions, and deceiver of silly women ; the 
avowed enemy of law and order, of justices of the 
peace, headboroughs, and gamekeepers. Such a man 
in fact as was recently caught tripping, and de- 
servedly dealt with by the Leeds justices, for seduc- 
ing a girl whor had come to him to get back a 
faithless lover, and has been convicted of bigamy 
since then. Sometimes, however, they are of quite 
a different stamp, men who pretend to nothing, and 
are with difficulty persuaded to exercise their occult 
arts in the simplest cases. 

Of this latter sort was old farmer Ives, as he was 
called, the “wise man” to whom Benjy resorted 
(taking Tom with him as usual), in the early spring 
of the year next after the feast described in the last 
chapter. Why he was called “farmer” I cannot 
say, unless it be that he was the owner of a cow, a 
pig or two, and some poultry, which he maintained 
on about an acre of land enclosed from the middle 
of a wild common, on which probably his father had 


BENJY RESORTS TO A IV7SE MAN. 


47 


squatted before lords of manors looked as keenly 
after their rights as they do now. Here he had lived 
no one knew how long, a solitary man. It was often 
rumored that he was to be turned out and his cottage 
pulled down, but somehow it never came to pass ; 
and his pigs and cow went grazing on the common, 
and his geese hissed at the passing children and at 
the heels of the horse of my lord’s steward, who 
often rode by with a covetous eye on the enclosure, 
still unmolested. His dwelling was some miles from 
our village; so Benjy, who was half ashamed of his 
errand, and wholly unable to walk there, had to ex- 
ercise much ingenuity to get the means of transporting 
himself and Tom thither without exciting suspicion. 
However, one fine May morning he managed to bor- 
row the old blind pony of our friend the publican, 
and Tom persuaded Madam Brown to give him a 
holiday to spend with old Benjy, and to lend them 
the Squire’s light cart, stored with bread and cold 
meat and a bottle of ale. And so the two in high 
glee started behind old Dobbin, and jogged along 
the deep-rutted plashy roads, which had not been 
mended after their winter’s wear, towards the dwell- 
ing of the wizard. About noon they passed the 
gate which opened on to the large common, and old 
Dobbin toiled slowly up the hill, while Benjy pointed 
out a little deep dingle on the left, out of which 
welled a tiny stream. As they crept up the hill the 
tops of a few birch-trees came in sight, and blue 
smoke curling up through their delicate light boughs ; 
and then the little white thatched home and patch of 
enclosed ground of farmer Ives, lying cradled in the 
dingle, with the gay gorse common rising behind and 
on both sides ; while in front, after traversing a gen- 
tle slope, the eye might travel for miles and miles 


48 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


over the rich vale. They now left the main road and 
struck into a green tract over the common marked 
lightly with wheel and horse-shoe, which led down 
into the dingle and stopped at the rough gate of 
farmer Ives. Here they found the farmer, an iron- 
grey old man, with a bushy eyebrow and strong 
aquiline nose, busied in one of his vocations. He 
was a horse and cow doctor, and was tending a sick 
beast which had been sent up to be cured. Benjy 
hailed him as an old friend, and he returned the 
greeting cordially enough, looking however hard 
for a moment both at Benjy and Tom, to see whether 
there was more in their visit than appeared at first 
sight. It was a work of some difficulty and danger 
for Benjy to reach the ground, which however he 
managed to do without mishap ; and then he devoted 
himself to unharnessing Dobbin, and turning him 
out for a graze (“ a run ” one could not say of that 
virtuous steed) on the common. This done, he ex- 
tricated the cold provisions from the cart, and they 
entered the farmer’s wicket ; and he, shutting up the 
knife with which he was taking maggots out of the 
cow’s back and sides, accompanied them towards the 
cottage. A big old lurcher got up slowly from the 
door-stone, stretching first one hind leg and then 
the other, and taking Tom’s caresses and the pres- 
ence of Toby, who kept however at a respectful dis- 
tance, with equal indifference. 

Us be cum to pay’e a visit. I’ve a been long 
minded to do’t for old sake’s sake, only I vinds I 
dwont get about now as I’d use to’t. I be so plaguy 
bad wi’ th’ rumatiz in my back.” Benjy paused, in 
It opes of drawing the farmer at once on the subject 
of his ailment without further direct application. 

Ah, I see as you bean’t quite so lissom as you 


THE ^^WISE MAN^S^' SURROUNDINGS. 


49 


was,” replied the farmer with a grim smile, as he 
lifted the latch of his door; ‘^we bean’t so young 
as we was, nother on us, wuss luck.” 

The farmer’s cottage was very like those of the 
better class of peasantry in general. A snug chim- 
ney corner with two seats, and a small carpet on the 
hearth, an old flint gun and a pair of spurs over the 
fireplace, a dresser with shelves on which some 
bright pewter plates and crockeryware were arranged, 
an old walnut table, a few chairs and settles, some 
framed samplers, and an old print or two, and a 
bookcase with some dozen volumes on the walls, a 
rack with flitches of bacon, and other stores fastened 
to the ceiling, and you have the best part of the 
furniture. No sign of occult art is to be seen, unless 
the bundles of dried herbs hanging to the rack and 
in the ingle, and the row of labelled phials on one 
of the shelves, betoken it. 

Tom played about with some kittens who occupied 
the hearth, and with a goat who walked demurely in 
at the open door, while their host and Benjy spread 
the table for dinner — and was soon engaged in con- 
flict with the cold meat, to which he did much 
honour. The two old men’s talk was of old com- 
rades and their deeds, mute inglorious Miltons of 
the Vale, and of the doings thirty years back — 
which didn’t interest him much, except when they 
spoke of the making of the canal, and then indeed 
he began to listen with all his ears, and learned to 
his no small wonder that his dear and wonderful 
canal had not been there always — was not in fact so 
old as Benjy or farmer Ives, which caused a strange 
commotion in his small brain. 

After dinner Benjy called attention to a wart which 
Tom had on the knuckles of his hand, and which the 
4 


50 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS, 


family doctor had been trying his skill on without 
success, and begged the farmer to charm it away. 
Farmer Ives looked at it, muttered something or 
another over it, and cut some notches in a short stick, 
which he handed to Benjy, giving him instructions 
for cutting it dowm on certain days, and cautioning 
Tom not to meddle with the wart for a fortnight. 
And then they strolled out and sat on a bench in the 
sun with their pipes, and the pigs came up* and 
grunted sociably and let Tom scratch them ; and the 
farmer, seeing how he liked animals, stood up and 
held his arms in the air and gave a call, which 
brought a flock of pigeons wheeling and dashing 
through the birch-trees. They settled down in clus- 
ters on the farmer’s arms and shoulders, making love 
to him and scrambling over one another’s backs to 
get to his face ; and then he threw them all off, and 
they fluttered about close by, and lighted on him 
again and again when he held up his arms. All the 
creatures about the place were clean and fearless, 
quite unlike their relations elsewhere ; and Tom 
begged to be taught how to make all the pigs and 
cows and poultry in our village tame, at which the 
farmer only gave one of his grim chuckles. 

It wasn’t till they were just ready to go, and old 
Dobbin was harnessed, that Benjy broached the sub- 
ject of his rheumatism again, detailing his symptoms 
one by one. Poor old boy ! He hoped the farmer 
could charm it away as easily as he could Tom’s wart, 
and was ready with equal faith to put another notched 
stick into his other pocket, for the cure of his own 
ailments. The physician shook his head, but never- 
theless produced a bottle and handed it to Benjy 
with instructions for use. “ Not as ’t’ll do’e much 
good — leastways I be afeared not,” shading his eyes 


BENJY'S RHEUMATISM. 


51 


with his hand and looking up at them in the cart ; 

there’s only one thing as I knows on, as’ll cure 
old folks like you and I o’ th’ rhumatis.” 

“ Wot be that then, farmer? ” inquired Benjy. 

Churchyard mould,” said the old iron-grey man, 
with another chuckle. And so they said their good- 
byes and went their ways home. Tom’s wart was 
gone in a fortnight, but not so Benjy’s rheumatism, 
which laid him by the heels more and more. And 
though Tom still spent many an hour with him, as 
he sat on a bench in the sunshine, or by the chimney 
corner when it was cold, he soon had to seek else- 
where for his regular companions. 

Tom had been accustomed often to accompany his 
mother in her visits to the cottages, and had thereby 
made acquaintance with many of the village boys of 
his own age. There was Job Rudkin, son of widow 
Rudkin, the most bustling woman in the parish. 
How she could ever have had such a stolid boy as Job 
for a child must always remain a mystery. The first 
time Tom went to their cottage with his mother Job 
was not in-doors, but he entered soon after, and stood 
with both hands in his pockets staring at Tom. Wid- 
ow Rudkin who would have had to cross Madam to 
get at young Hopeful — a breach of good manners of 
which she was wholly incapable — began a series of 
pantomime signs, which only puzzled him, and at 
last, unable to contain herself longer, burst out with, 
“ Job ! Job ! where’s thy cap ? ” 

“ What ! beant’e on ma’ head, mother?” replied 
Job, slowly extricating one hand from a pocket and 
feeling for the article in question ; which he found on 
his head sure enough, and left there, to his mother’s 
horror and Tom’s great delight. 

Then there was poor Jacob Dodson, the half-witted 


52 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


boy, who ambled about cheerfully, undertaking mes- 
sages and little helpful odds and ends for every one, 
which, however, poor Jacob managed always hope- 
lessly to embrangle. Everything came to pieces in 
his hands, and nothing would stop in his head. They 
nicknamed him Jacob Doodle-calf. 

But above all there was Harry W inburn, the 
quickest and best boy in the parish. He might be a 
year older than Tom, but was very little bigger, and 
he was the Crichton of our village boys. He could 
wrestle and climb and run better than all the rest, 
and learned all that the schoolmaster could teach him 
faster than that worthy at all liked. He was a boy 
to be proud of, with his curly brown hair, keen grey 
eye, straight active figure, and little ears and hands 
and feet, ‘‘as fine as a lord’s,” as Charity remarked 
to Tom one day, talking as usual great nonsense. 
I^ords’ hands and ears and feet are just as ugly as 
other folks’ when they are children, as any one may 
convince themselves if they like to look. Tight 
boots and gloves, and doing nothing with them, I al- 
low make a difference by the time they are twenty. 

Now that Benjy was laid on the shelf, and his 
young brothers were still under petticoat govern- 
ment, Tom, in search of companions, began to cul- 
tivate the village boys generally more and more. 
Squire Brown, be it said, was a true blue Tory to the 
backbone, and believed honestly that the powers 
which be were ordained of God, and that loyalty 
and steadfast obedience were men’s first duties. 
Whether it were in consequence or in spite of his 
political creed, I do not mean to give an opinion, 
though I have one; but certain it is, that he held 
therewith divers social principles not generally sup- 
posed to be true blue in colour. Foremost of these, 


TORYISM OF SQUIRE BROIVN. 


53 


and the one which the Squire loved to propound above 
all others, was the belief that a man is to be valued 
wholly and solely for that which he is in himself, for 
that which stands up in the four fleshly walls of him, 
apart from clothes, rank, fortune, and all externals 
whatsoever. Which belief I take to be a wholesome 
corrective of all political opinions, and, if held 
sincerely, to make all opinions equally harmless, 
whether they be blue, red, or green. As a necessary 
corollary to this belief. Squire Brown held further 
that it didn’t matter a straw whether his son associated 
with lords’ sons, or ploughmen’s sons, provided they 
were brave and honest. He himself had played 
football and gone birds’-nesting with the farmers 
whom he met at vestry and the labourers who tilled 
their fields, and so had his father and grandfather 
with their progenitors. So he encouraged Tom in 
his intimacy with the boys of the village, and for- 
warded it by all means in his power, and gave 
them the run of a close for a playground, and 
provided bats and balls and a football for their 
sports. 

Our village was blessed amongst other things with 
a well-endowed school. The building stood by itself, 
apart from the master’s house, on an angle of ground 
where three roads met; an old grey stone building 
with a steep roof and mullioned windows. On one 
of the opposite angles stood Squire Brown’s stables 
and kennel, with their backs to the road, over which 
towered a great elm-tree ; on the third stood the 
village carpenter and wheelwright’s large open shop, 
and his house and the schoolmaster’s, with long low 
eaves under which the swallows built by scores. 

The moment Tom’s lessons were over, he would 
now get him down to this corner by the stables, and 


54 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


watch till the boys came out of school. He pre- 
vailed on the groom to cut notches for him in the 
bark of the elm, so that he could climb into the 
lower branches, and there he would sit watching the 
school door, and speculating on the possibility of 
turning the elm into a dwelling-place for himself and 
friends after the manner of the Swiss Family Robin- 
son. But the school hours were long and Tom’s 
patience short, so that soon he began to descend into 
the street, and go and peep in at the school door and 
the wheelwright’s shop, and look out for something 
to while away the time. Now the wheelwright was a 
choleric man, and, one fine afternoon, returning 
from a short absence, found Tom occupied with one 
of his pet adzes, the edge of which was fast vanish- 
ing under our hero’s care. A speedy flight saved 
Tom from all but one sound cuff on the ears, but he 
resented this unjustifiable interruption of his first 
essays at carpentering, and still more the further 
proceedings of the wheelwright, who cut a switch 
and hung it over the door of his workshop, threaten- 
ing to use it upon Tom if he came within twenty 
yards of his gate. So Tom, to retaliate, commenced 
a war upon the swallows who dwelt under the wheel- 
wright’s eaves, whom he harassed with sticks and 
stones, and being fleeter of foot than his enemy, es- 
caped all punishment and kept him in perpetual 
anger. Moreover his presence about the school door 
began to incense the master, as the boys in that 
neighbourhood neglected their lessons in conse- 
quence: and more than once he issued into the 
porch, rod in hand, just as Tom beat a hasty retreat. 
And he and the wheelwright, laying their heads 
together, resolved to acquaint the Squire with Tom’s 
afternoon occupations ; but in order to do it with 


TOM^S FOES.— THE WHEELWRIGHT, ETC. 55 

effect, determined to take him captive and lead him 
away to judgment fresh from his evil doings. This 
they would have found some difficulty in doing, had 
Tom continued the war single-handed, or rather 
single-footed, for he would have taken to the deepest 
part of Pebbly Brook to escape them \ but, like 
other active powers, he was ruined by his alliances. 
Poor Jacob Doodle-calf could not go to school with 
the other boys, and one fine afternoon, about three 
o’clock (the school broke up at four), Tom found 
him ambling about the street, and pressed him into 
a visit to the school porch. Jacob, always ready to 
do what he was asked, consented, and the two stole 
down to the school together. Tom first reconnoitred 
the wheelwright’s shop, and seeing no signs of 
activity, thought all safe in that quarter, and ordered 
at once an advance of all his troops upon the school 
porch. The door of the school was ajar, and the 
boys seated on the nearest bench at once recognized 
and opened a correspondence with the invaders. 
Tom waxing bold, kept putting his head into the 
school and making faces at the master when his back 
was turned. Poor Jacob, not in the least compre- 
hending the situation, and in high glee at finding 
himself so near the school, which he had never been 
allowed to enter, suddenly, in a fit of enthusiasm, 
pushed by Tom, and ambling three steps into the 
school, stood there, looking round him and nodding 
with a self-approving smile. The master, who was 
stooping over a boy’s slate, with his back to the 
door, became aware of something unusual, and 
turned quickly round. Tom rushed at Jacob, and 
began dragging him back by his smock-frock, and 
the master made at them, scattering forms and boys 
in his career. Even now they might have escaped. 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


56 

but that in the porch, barring retreat, appeared the 
crafty wheelwright, who had been watching all their 
proceedings. So they were seized, the school dis- 
missed, and Tom and Jacob led away to Squire 
Brown as lawful prize, the boys following to the 
gate in groups, and speculating on the result. 

The Squire was very angry at first, but the inter- 
view, by Tom’s pleading, ended in a compromise. 
Tom was not to go near the school till three o’clock, 
and only then if he had done his own lessons well, 
in which case he was to be the bearer of a note to 
the master from Squire Brown, and the master 
agreed in such case to release ten or twelve of the 
best boys an hour before the time of breaking up, to 
go off and play in the close. The wheelwright’s 
adzes and swallows were to be for ever respected ; 
and that hero and the master withdrew to the ser- 
vants’ hall, to drink the Squire’s health, well satisfied 
with their day’s work. 

The second act of Tom’s life may now be said to 
have begun. The war of independence had been 
over for some time : none of the women now, not even 
his mother’s maid, dared offer to help him in dressing 
or washing. Between ourselves, he had often at first to 
run to Benjy in an unfinished state of toilet ; Charity 
and the rest of them seemed to take a delight in put- 
ting impossible buttons and ties in the middle of his 
back ; but he would have gone without nether 
integuments altogether sooner than have had recourse 
to female valeting. He had a room to himself, and 
his father gave him sixpence a week pocket-money. 
All this he had achieved by Benjy’s advice and 
assistance. But now he had conquered another step 
in life, the step which all real boys so long to make ; 
he had got amongst his equals in age and strength. 


PLAY AND WORN. 


57 


and could measure himself with other boys; he lived 
with those whose pursuits and wishes and ways were 
the same in kind as his own. 

The little governess who had lately been installed 
in the house found her work grow wondrously easy, 
for Tom slaved at his lessons in order to make sure 
of his note to the schoolmaster. So there were very 
few days in the week in which Tom and the village 
boys were not playing in their close by three 
o’clock. Prisoner’s base, rounders, high-cock-a- 
lorum, cricket, football, he was soon initiated into 
the delights of them all ; and though most of the 
boys were older than himself, he managed to hold 
his own very well. He was naturally active and 
strong, and quick of eye and hand, and had the 
advantage of light shoes and well-fitting dress, so 
that in a short time he could run and jump and 
climb with any of them. 

They generally finished their regular games half 
an hour or so before tea-time, and then began trials 
of skill and strength in many ways. Some of them 
would catch the Shetland pony who was turned out 
in the field, and get two or three together on his 
back, and the little rogue, enjoying the fun, would 
gallop off for fifty yards, and then turn round, or 
stop short and shoot them on to the turf, and then 
graze quietly on till he felt another load ; others 
played peg-top or marbles, while a few of the bigger 
ones stood up for a bout at wrestling. Tom at first 
only looked on at this pastime, but it had peculiar 
attractions for him, and he could not long keep out 
of it. Elbow and collar wrestling as practised in 
the western counties was, next to back-swording, the 
way to fame for the youth of the Vale ; and all the 
boys knew the rules of it, and were more or less 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DA YS. 


58 

expert. But Job Rudkin and Harry Winburn were 
the stars, the former stiff and sturdy, with legs like 
small towers, the latter pliant as india-rubber, and 
quick as lightning. Day after day they stood foot 
to foot, and offered first one hand and then the 
other, and grappled and closed and swayed and 
strained, till a well-aimed crook of the heel or thrust 
of the loin took effect, and a fair back-fall ended the 
matter. And Tom watched with all his eyes, and 
first challenged one of the less scientific, and threw 
him ; and so one by one wrestled his way up to the 
leaders. 

Then indeed for months he had a poor time of it ; 
it was not long indeed before he could manage to 
keep his legs against Job, for that hero was slow of 
offence, and gained his victories chiefly by allowing 
others to throw themselves against his immovable 
legs and loins. But Harry Winburn was undeniably 
his master ; from the first clutch of hands when they 
stood up, down to the last trip which sent him on his 
back on the turf, he felt that Harry knew more and 
could do more than he. Luckily, Harry’s bright un- 
consciousness, and Tom’s natural good temper, kept 
them from ever quarrelling ; and so Tom worked on 
and on, and trod more and more nearly on Harry’s 
heels, and at last mastered all the dodges and falls 
except one. This one was Harry’s own particular 
invention and pet ; he scarcely ever used it except 
when hard pressed, but then out it came, and as sure 
as it did, over went poor Tom. He thought about 
that fall at his meals, in his walks, when he lay awake 
in bed, in his dreams, — but all to no purpose; until 
Harry one day in his open way suggested to him how 
he thought it should be met, and in a week from that 
time the boys were equal, save only the slight differ- 


EARLIEST PLAYMATES. 


59 

ence of strength in Harry’s favour which some extra 
ten months of age gave. Tom had often afterwards 
reason to be thankful for that early drilling, and 
above all for haying mastered Harry Winburn’s fall. 

Besides their home games, on Saturdays the boys 
w'ould wander all over the neighbourhood ; sometimes 
to the downs, or up to the camp, where they cut their 
initials out in the springy turf, and watched the hawks 
soaring, and the “ peert ” bird, as Harry Winburn 
called the grey plover, gorgeous in his wedding 
feathers ; and so home, racing down the Manger with 
many a roll among the thistles, or through Uffington- 
wood to watch the fox cubs playing in the green 
rides ; sometimes to Rosy Brook, to cut long whisper^ 
ing reeds which grew there, to make pan-pipes of ; 
sometimes to Moor Mills, where was a piece of old 
forest land, with short browsed turf and tufted bram- 
bly thickets stretching under the oaks, amongst which 
rumor declared that a raven, last of his race, still 
lingered ; or to the sand-hills, in vaiivquest of rab- 
bits ; and bird’s-nesting, in the season, anywhere and 
everywhere. 

The few neighbours of the Squire’s own rank every 
now and then would shrug their shoulders as they 
drove or rode by a party of boys with Tom in the 
middle, carrying along bulrushes or whispering reeds, 
or great bundles of cowslip and meadow-sweet, or 
young starlings or magpies, or other spoil of wood, 
brook, or meadow ; and Lawyer Red-tape might 
mutter to Squire Straightback at the Board, that no 
good would come of the young Browns, if they were 
let run wild with all the dirty village boys, whom the 
best farmers’ sons even would not play with. And 
the Squire might reply with a shake of his head, that 
his sons only mixed with their equals, and never went 


6o 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS, 


into the village without the governess or a footman. 
But, luckily, Squire Brown was full as stiff-backed as 
his neighbours, and so went on his own way ; and Tom 
and his younger brothers, as they grew up, went on 
playing with the village boys, without the idea of 
equality or inequality (except in wrestling, running, 
and climbing,) ever entering their heads, as it doesn’t 
till it’s put there by Jack Nastys or fine ladies’ maids. 

I don’t mean to say it would be the case in all 
villages, but it certainly was in this one ; the vil- 
lage boys were full as manly and honest, and certainly 
purer, than those in a higher rank ; and Tom got 
more harm from his equals in his first fortnight at a 
private school, where he went when he was nine years 
old, than he had from his village friends from the 
day he left Charity’s apron-strings. 

Great was the grief amongst the village school- 
boys when Tom drove off with the Squire, one 
August morning, to meet the coach on his way to 
school. Each of them had given him some little pres- 
ent of the best that he had, and his small private box 
was full of peg-tops, white marbles (called “alley- 
taws” in the Vale), screws, birds’-eggs, whip-cord, 
jews- harps, and other miscellaneous boys’ wealth. 
Poor Jacob Doodle-calf, in floods of tears, had 
pressed upon him with spluttering earnestness his 
lame pet hedgehog (he had always some poor broken- 
down beast or bird by him) ; but this Tom had been 
obliged to refuse by the Squire’s order. He had 
given them all a great tea under the big elm in their 
playground, for which Madam Brown had supplied the 
biggest cake ever seen in our village ; and Tom was 
really as sorry to leave them as they to lose him, but 
his sorrow was not unmixed with the pride and ex- 
citement of making a new step in life. 


FIRST SCHOOL. 


6i 


And this feeling carried him through his first part- 
ing with his mother better than could have been 
expected. Their love was as fair and whole as human 
love can be, perfect self-sacrifice on the one side, 
meeting a young and true heart on the other. It 
is not within the scope of my book, however, to 
speak of family relations, or I should have much to 
say on the subject of English mothers, — ay, and of 
English fathers, and sisters, and brothers too. 

Neither have I room to speak of our private 
schools : what I have to say is about public schools, 
those much-abused and much-belauded institutions 
peculiar to England. So we must hurry through 
Master Tom’s year at a private school as fast as we 
can. 

It was a fair average specimen, kept by a gentle- 
man, with another gentleman as second master ; 
but it was little enough of the real work they did — 
merely coming into school when lessons were pre- 
pared and all ready to be heard. The whole disci- 
pline of the school out of lesson hours was in the 
hands of the two ushers, one of whom was always with 
the boys in their playground, in the school, at meals — 
in fact, at all times and everywhere, till they were 
fairly in bed at night. 

Now the theory of private schools is (or was) con- 
stant supervision out of school ; therein differing 
fundamentally from that of public schools. 

It may be right or wrong ; but if right, this super- 
vision surely ought to be the especial work of the 
head-master, the responsible person. The object of 
all schools is not to ram Latin and Greek* into boys, 
but to make them good English boys, good future 
citizens; and by far the most important part of that 
work must be done, or not done, out of school hours. 


62 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


To leave it, therefore, in the hands of inferior men, 
is just giving up the highest and hardest part of the 
work of education. Were I a private schoolmaster, 
I should say, let who will hear the boys their lessons, 
but let me live with them when they are at play and 
rest. 

The two ushers at Tom’s first .school were not 
gentlemen, and very poorly educated, and were only 
driving their poor trade of usher to get such living 
as they could out of it. They were not bad men, 
but had little heart for their work, and ofcourse were 
bent on making it as easy as possible. One of the 
methods by which they endeavoured to accomplish 
this, was by encouraging tale-bearing, which had be- 
come a frightfully common vice in the school in con- 
sequence, and had sapped all the foundations of 
school morality. Another was, by favouring grossly 
the biggest boys, who alone could have given them 
much trouble ; whereby those young gentlemen be- 
came most abominable tyrants, oppressing the little 
boys in all the small mean ways which prevail in 
private schools. 

Poor little Tom was made dreadfully unhappy in 
his first week, by a catastrophe which happened to 
his first letter home. With huge labour he had, on 
the very evening of his arrival, managed to fill two 
sides of a sheet of letter-paper with assurances of 
his love for dear mamma, his happiness at school, 
and his resolves to do all she would wish. This 
missive, with the help of the boy who sat at the 
desk next him, also a new arrival, he managed to 
fold successfully ; but this done, they were sadly 
put to it for means of sealing. Envelopes were 
then unknown, they had no wax, and dared not 
disturb the stillness of the evening school-room by 


TOM’S FIRST LETTER HOME. 


63 

getting up and going to ask the usher for some. At 
length Tom’s friend, being of an ingenious turn of 
mind, suggested sealing with ink, and the letter was 
accordingly stuck down with a blob of ink, and duly 
handed % Tom, on his way to bed, to the house- 
keeper to be posted. It was not till four days 
afterwards, that that good dame sent for him, and 
produced the precious letter, and some wax, saying. 
Oh, Master Brown, I forgot to tell you before, 
but your letter isn’t sealed.” Poor Tom took the 
wax in silence and sealed his letter, with a huge 
lump rising in his throat during the process, and 
then ran away to a quiet corner of the playground 
and burst into an agony of tears. The idea of his 
mother waiting day after day for the letter he had 
promised her at once, and perhaps thinking him 
forgetful of her, when he had done all in his power 
to make good his promise, was as bitter a grief as 
any which he had to undergo for many a long year. 
His wrath then was proportionately violent when 
he was aware of two boys, who stopped close by 
him, and one of whom, a fat gabv of a fellow, 
pointed at him and called him “Young mammy- 
sick!” Whereupon Tom arose, and giving vent 
thus to his grief and shame and rage, smote his 
derider on the nose, and made it bleed — which sent 
that young worthy howling to the usher, who re- 
ported Tom for violent and unprovoked assault and 
battery. Hitting in the face was a felony punishable 
with flogging, other hitting only a misdemeanour — a 
distinction not altogether clear in principle. Tom 
however escaped the penalty by pleading “ primum 
tempus; ” and having written a second letter to his 
mother, enclosing some forget-me-nots, which he 
picked on their first half-holiday walk, felt quite 


64 tom BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 

happy again, and began to enjoy vastly a good deal 
of his new life. 

These half-holiday walks were the great events of 
the week. The whole fifty boys started after dinner 
with one of the ushers for Hazeldown, which was 
distant some mile or so from the school. Hazel- 
down measured some three miles round, and in the 
neighbourhood were several woods full of all man- 
ner of birds and butterflies. The usher walked 
slowly around the down with such boys as liked to 
accompany him ; the rest scattered in all directions, 
being only bound to appear again when the usher 
had completed his round, and accompany him home. 
They were forbidden, however, to go anywhere ex- 
cept on the down and into the woods, the village 
being especially prohibited, where huge bulls’ -eyes 
and unctuous toffy might be procured in exchange 
for coin of the realm. 

Various were the amusements to which the boys 
then betook themselves. At the entrance of the 
down there was a steep hillock, like the barrows of 
Tom’s own downs. This mound was the weekly 
scene of terrific combats, at a game called by the 
queer name of “mud-patties.” The boys who 
played divided into sides under different leaders, 
and one side occupied the mound. Then, all parties 
having provided themselves with many sods of turf, 
cut with their bread-and-cheese knives, the side 
which remained at the bottom proceeded to assault 
the mound, advancing upon all sides under cover of 
a heavy fire of turfs, and then struggling for victory 
with the occupants, which was theirs as soon as they 
could, even for a moment, clear the summit, when 
they in turn became the besieged. It was a good 
rough dirty game, and of great use in counteracting 


THE AMUSEMENTS. 


65 

the sneaking tendencies of the school. Then others 
of the boys spread over the downs, looking for the 
holes of humble-bees and mice, which they dug up 
without mercy, often (I regret to say) killing and 
skinning the unlucky mice, and (I do not regret to 
say) getting well stung by the humble-bees. Others 
went after butterflies and birds’ eggs in their seasons ; 
and Tom found on Hazeldown, for the first time, 
the beautiful little blue butterfly with golden spots on 
his wings, which he had never seen on his own 
downs, and dug out his first sand-martin’s nest. 
This latter achievement resulted in a flogging, for 
the sand-martins built in a high bank close to the 
village, consequently out of bounds ; but one of the 
bolder spirits of the school, who never could be 
happy unless he was doing something to which risk 
attached, easily persuaded Tom to break bounds and 
visit the martin’s bank. From whence it being only 
a step to the toffy-shop, what could be more simple 
than to go on there and fill their pockets ; or what 
more certain than that on their return, a distribution 
of treasure having been made, the usher should 
shortly detect the forbidden smell of bulls’-eyes, and 
a search ensuing, discover the state of the breeches- 
pockets of Tom and his ally? 

This ally of Tom’s was indeed a desperate hero in 
the sight of the boys, and feared as one who dealt 
in magic, or something approaching thereto. Which 
reputation came to him in this wise. The boys went 
to bed at eight, and of course consequently lay 
awake in the dark for an hour or two, telling ghost- 
stories by turns. One night when it came to his 
turn, and he had dried up their souls by his story, 
he suddenly declared that he would make a fiery 
hand appear on the door ; and to the astonishment 

5 


66 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


and terror of the boys in his room, a hand, or some- 
thing like it, in pale light, did then and there 
appear. The fame of this exploit having spread to 
the other rooms, and being discredited there, the 
young necromancer declared that the same wonder 
would appear in all the rooms in turn, which it 
accordingly did ; and the whole circumstances having 
been privately reported to one of the ushers as usual, 
that functionary, after listening about at the doors 
of the rooms, by a sudden descent caught the per- 
former in his night-shirt, with a box of phosphorus 
in his guilty hand. Lucifer-matches and all the 
present facilities for getting acquainted with fire were 
then unknown ; the very name of phosphorus had 
something diabolical in it to the boy-mind ; so 
Tom’s ally, at the cost of a sound flogging, earned 
what many older folk covet much — the very decided 
fear of most of his companions. 

He was a remarkable boy, and by no means a bad 
one. Tom stuck to him till he left, and got into 
many scrapes by so doing. But he was the great 
opponent of the tale-bearing habits of the school, 
and the open enemy of the ushers ; and so worthy 
of all support. 

Tom imbibed a fair amount of Latin and Greek at 
the school, but somehow on the whole it didn’t suit 
him, or he it, and in the holidays he was constantly 
working the Squire to send him at once to a public 
school. Great was his joy then, when in the middle 
of his third half-year, in October, 183-, a fever 
broke out in the village, and the master having him- 
self slightly sickened of it, the whole of the boys 
were sent off at a day’s notice to their respective 
homes. 

The Squire was not quite so pleased as Master 


TOM PREPARES FOR RUGBY. 


67 

Tom to see that young gentleman’s brown merry face 
appear at home, some two months before the proper 
time, for Christmas holidays : and so after putting 
on his thinking cap, he retired to his study and 
wrote several letters ; the result of which was that 
one morning at the breakfast-table, about a fortnight 
after Tom’s return, he addressed his wife with — 
My dear, I have arranged that Tom shall go to 
Rugby at once, for the last six weeks of this half- 
year, instead of wasting them riding and loitering 
about home. It is very kind of the Doctor to allow 
it. Will you see that his things are all ready by 
Friday, when I shall take him up to town, and send 
him down the next day by himself.” 

Mrs. Brown was prepared for the announcement, 
and merely suggested a doubt whether Tom were yet 
old enough to travel by himself. However, finding 
both father and son against her on this point, she 
gave in like a wise woman, and proceeded to prepare 
Tom’s kit for his launch into a public school. 

o 

CHAPTER IV. 

‘<\TOW, sir, time to get up, if you please. Tally-ho 
coach for Leicester ’ll be round in half-an- 
hour, and don’t wait for nobody.” So spake 
the Boots of the Peacock Inn, Islington, at half- 
past two o’clock on the morning of a day in the 
early part of November, 183-, giving Tom at the 
same time a shake by the shoulder, and then putting 
down a candle and carrying off his shoes to clean. 
Tom and his father had arrived in town from Berk 


68 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


shire the day before, and finding, on inquiry, that 
the Birmingham coaches which ran from the city did 
not pass through Rugby, but deposited their pas- 
sengers at Dunchurch, a village three miles distant 
on the main road — where said passengers had to wait 
for the Oxford and Leicester coach in the evening, 
or to take a post-chaise — had resolved that Tom 
should travel down by the Tally-ho, which diverged 
from the main road and passed through Rugby itself. 
And as the Tally-ho was an early coach, they had 
driven out to the Peacock to be on the road. 

Tom had never been in London, and would have 
liked to have stopped at the Belle Sauvage, where 
they had been put down by the Star, just at dusk, 
that he might have gone roving about those endless, 
mysterious, gas-lit streets, which, with their glare and 
hum and moving crowds, excited him so that he 
couldn’t talk even. But as soon as he found that the 
Peacock arrangement would get him to Rugby by 
twelve o’clock in the day, whereas otherwise he 
wouldn’t be there till the evening, all other plans 
melted away ; his one absorbing aim being to be- 
come a public schoolboy as fast as possible, and six 
hours sooner or later seeming to him of the most 
alarming importance. 

Tom and his father had alighted at the Peacock at 
about seven in the evening, and having heard with 
unfeigned joy the paternal order at the bar, of steaks 
and oyster sauce for supper in half an hour, and seen 
his father seated cozily by the bright fire in the 
coffee-room with the paper in his hand — Tom had 
run out to see about him, had wondered at all the vehi- 
cles passing and repassing, and had fraternised with 
the boots and ostler, from whom he ascertained that 
the Tally-ho was a tip-top goer, ten miles an hour in- 


SQUIRE BROWNES BART/ JIG JVORDS. 69 

eluding stoppages and so punctual that all the road set 
their clocks by her. 

Then being summoned to supper he had regaled 
himself in one of the bright little boxes of the Pea- 
cock coffee-room on the beef-steak and unlimited 
oyster sauce and brown stout (tasted then for the first 
time — a day to be marked for ever by Tom with a 
white stone) ; had at first attended to the excellent 
advice which his father was bestowing on him from 
over his glass of steaming brandy and water, and 
then begun nodding from the united effects of the 
stout, the fire, and the lecture. Till the Squire 
observing Tom’s state, and remembering that it was 
nearly nine o’clock, and that the Tally-ho left at 
three, sent the little fellow off to the chambermaid, 
with a shake of the hand (Tom having stipulated in 
the morning before starting, that kissing should now 
cease between them,) and a few parting words. 

“And now, Tom, my boy,” said the Squire, “re- 
member you are going, at your own earnest request, 
to be chucked into this great school, like a young 
bear with all your troubles before you — earlier than 
we should have sent you perhaps. If schools are 
what they were in my time, you’ll see a great many 
cruel blackguard things done, and hear a deal of foul 
bad talk. But never fear. You tell the truth, keep 
a brave and kind heart, and never listen to or say 
anything you wouldn’t have your mother and sister 
hear, and you’ll never feel ashamed to come home, 
or we to see you.” 

The allusion to his mother made Tom feel rather 
chokey, and he would have liked to have hugged his 
father well, if it hadn’t been for the recent stipulation. 

As it was, he only squeezed his father’s hand, and 
looked bravely up and said, “I’ll try, father.” 


70 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


I know you will, my boy. Is your money all 
safe ? ” 

‘‘Yes,” said Tom, diving into one pocket to make 
sure. 

“And your keys? ” said the Squire. 

“All right,” said Tom, diving into the other 
pocket. 

“Well then, good night. God bless you! I’ll 
tell Boots to call you, and be up to see you off.” 

Tom was carried off by the chambermaid in a 
brown study, from which he was roused in a clean 
little attic by that buxom person calling him a little 
darling, and kissing him as she left the room, which 
■indignity he was too much surprised to resent. And 
still thinking of his father’s last words, and the look 
with which they were spoken, he knelt down and 
prayed, that, come what might, he might never 
bring shame or sorrow on the dear folk at home. 

Indeed, the Squire’s last words deserved to have 
their effect, for they had been the result of much 
anxious thought. All the way up to London he had 
pondered what he should say to Tom by way of 
parting advice, something that the boy could keep in 
his head ready for use. By way of assisting medita- 
tion, he had even gone the length of taking out his 
flint and steel and tinder, and hammering away for 
a quarter of an hour till he had manufactured a light 
for a long Trichinopoli cheroot, which he silently 
puffed ; to the no small wonder of Coachee, who 
was an old friend, and an institution on the Bath 
road ; and who always expected a talk on the pros- 
pects and doings, agricultural and social, of the 
whole county when he carried the Squire. 

To condense the Squire’s meditation, it was some- 
what as follows: “ I won’t tell him to read his Bible 


TOM PREPARES FOR HIS JOURNEY. 71 

and love and serve God ; if he don’t do that for his 
mother’s sake and teaching, he won’t for mine. 
Shall I go into the sort of temptations he’ll meet 
with ? No, I can’t do that. Never do for an old 
fellow to go into such things with a boy. He won’t 
understand me. Do him more harm than good, ten 
to one. Shall I tell him to mind his work, and say 
he’s sent to school to make himself a good scholar? 
Well, but he isn’t sent to school for that — at any 
rate, not for that mainly. I don’t care a straw for 
Greek particles, or the digamma, no more does his 
mother. What is he sent to school for? Well, 
partly because he wanted so to go. If he’ll only 
turn out a brave, helpful, truth-telling Englishman, 
and a gentleman, and a Christian, that’s all I want,” 
thought the Squire; and upon this view of the case 
framed his last words of advice to Tom, which were 
well enough suited to his purpose. 

For they were Tom’s first thoughts as he tumbled 
out of bed at the summons of Boots, and proceeded 
rapidly to wash and dress himself. At ten minutes 
to three he was down in the coffee-room in his stock- 
ings, carrying his hat-box, coat, and comforter in his 
hand ; and there he found his father nursing a bright 
fire and a cup of hot coffee and a hard biscuit on the 
table. 

“Now then, Tom, give us your things here, and 
drink this ; there’s nothing like starting warm, old 
fellow.” 

Tom addressed himself to the coffee, and prattled 
away while he worked himself into his shoes and his 
great-coat, well warmed through ; a Petersham coat 
with velvet collar, made tight, after the abominable 
fashion of those days. And just as he is swallowing 
his last moutliful, winding his comforter round his 


72 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


throat, and tucking the ends into the breast of his 
coat, the horn sounds. Boots looks in and says, 
“Tally-ho, sir;” and they hear the ring and the 
rattle of the four fast trotters and the town-made 
drag, as it dashes up to the Peacock. 

“Anything for us. Bob?” says the burly guard, 
dropping down from behind, and slapping himself 
across the chest. 

“Young genl’m’n, Rugby; three parcels, Lei- 
cester; hamper o’ game, Rugby,” answers ostler. 

“Tell young gent to look alive,” says guard, 
opening the hind-boot and shooting in the parcels 
after examining them by the lamps. “ Here, shove 
the portmanteau up a-top — I’ll fasten him presently. 
Now then, sir, jump up behind.” 

“Good-bye, father, — my love at home.” A last 
shake of the hand. Up goes Tom, the guard catch- 
ing his hat-box and holding on with one hand, while 
with the other he claps the horn to his mouth. 
Toot, toot, toot ! the ostlers let go their heads, the 
four bays plunge at the collar, and away goes the 
Tally-ho into the darkness, forty-five seconds from 
the time they pulled up; Ostler, Boots, and the 
Squire stand looking after them under the Peacock 
lamp. 

“ Sharp work ! ” says the Squire, and goes in again 
to his bed, the coach being well out of sight and 
hearing. 

Tom stands up on the coach and looks back at his 
father’s figure as long as he can see it, and then the 
guard having disposed of his luggage comes to an 
anchor, and finishes his buttonings and other prep- 
arations for facing the three hours before dawn ; 
no joke for those who minded cold, on a fast coach 
in November, in the reign of his late majesty. 


A NOVEMBER RIDE IN OLD TIME. 


73 


I sometimes think tliat you boys of this generation 
are a deal tenderer fellows than we used to be. At 
any rate, you’re much more comfortable travellers, 
for I see every one of you with his rug or plaid, and 
other dodges for preserving the caloric, and most of 
you going in those fuzzy, dusty, padded first-class 
carriages. It was another affair altogether, a dark 
ride on the top of the Tally-ho, I can tell you, in a 
tight Petersham coat, and your feet dangling six 
inches from the floor. Then you knew what cold was, 
and what it was to be without legs, for not a bit of 
feeling had you in them after the first half-hour. 
But it had its pleasures, the old dark ride. First 
there was the consciousness of silent endurance, so 
dear to every Englishman, — of standing out against 
something, and not giving in. Then there was the 
music of the rattling harness, and the ring of the 
horses* feet on the hard road, and the glare of the two 
bright lamps through the steaming hoar frost, over 
the leaders’ ears, into the darkness ; and the cheery 
toot of the guard’s horn, to warn some drowsy 
pikeman or the ostler at the next change ; and the 
looking forward to daylight — and last, but not least, 
the delight of returning sensation in your toes. 

Then the break of dawn and the sunrise ; where 
can they be ever seen in perfection but from a coach 
roof? You want motion and change and music to 
see them in their glory ; not the music of singing- 
men and singing-women, but good silent music, 
which sets itself in your own head the accompani- 
ment of work and getting over the ground. , 

The Tally-ho is past St. Alban’s, and Tom is 
enjoying the ride, though half-frozen. The guard, 
who is alone with him on the back of the coach, is 
silent, but has muffled Tom’s feet up in straw, and 


74 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


put the end of an oat-sack over his knees. The 
darkness has driven him inwards, and he has gone 
over his little past life, and thought of all his doings 
and promises, and of his mother and sister, and 
his father’s last words ; and has made fifty good 
resolutions, and means to bear himself like a brave 
Brown as he is, though a young one. 

Then he has been forward into the mysterious 
boy-future, speculating as to what sort of a place 
Rugby is, and what they do there, and calling up 
all the stories of public schools which he has heard 
from big boys in the holidays. He is chock full of 
hope and life, notwithstanding the cold, and kicks 
his heels against the back board, and would like to 
sing, only he doesn’t know how his friend the silent 
guard might take it. 

And now the dawn breaks at the end of the fourth 
stage, and the coach pulls up at a little road-side inn 
with huge stables behind. There is a bright fire 
gleaming through the red curtains of the bar- 
window, and the door is open. The coachman 
catches his whip into a double thong, and throws it 
to the ostler ; the steam of the horses rises straight 
xip into the air. He has put them along over the 
last two miles, and is two minutes before his time ; 
he rolls down from the box and into the inn. The 
guard rolls off behind. “ Now, sir,” says he to 
Tom, ‘‘ you just jump down, and I’ll give you a 
drop of something to keep the cold out.” 

Tom finds a difficulty in jumping, or indeed in 
finding the top of the wheel with his feet, which 
may be in the next world for all he feels ; so the 
guard picks him off the coach-top, and sets him on 
his legs, and they stump off into the bar, and join 
the coachman and the other outside passengers. 


MORNING SIGHTS AND DOINGS. 


75 


Here a fresh-looking barmaid serves them each with 
a glass of early purl as they stand before the fire, 
coachman and guard exchanging business remarks. 
The purl warms the cockles of Tom’s heart, and makes 
him cough. 

“Rare tackle, that, sir, of a cold morning,” says 
the coachman, smiling. “Time’s up.” They are 
out again and up; coachee the last, gathering the 
reins into his hands and talking to Jem the ostler 
about the mare’s shoulder, and then swinging himself 
up on to the box — the horses dashing off in a canter 
before he falls into his seat. Toot-toot-tootle-too 
goes the horn, and away they are again, five-and- 
thirty miles on their road (nearly half way to Rugby, 
thinks Tom), and the prospect of breakfast at the end 
of the stage. 

And now they begin to see, and the early life of 
the country-side comes out ; a market cart or two, 
men in smock-frocks going to their work pipe in 
mouth, a whiff of which is no bad smell this bright 
morning. The sun gets up, and the mist shines like 
silver gauze. They pass the hounds jogging along 
to a distant meet, at the heels of the huntsman’s 
hack, -whose face is about the colour of the tails of 
his old pink, as he exchanges greetings with coach- 
man and guard. Now they pull up at a lodge, and 
take on board a well-muffled-up sportsman, with his 
gun-case and carpet-bag. An early upcoach meets 
them, and the coachmen gather up their horses, and 
pass one another with the accustomed lift of the 
elbow, each team doing eleven miles an hour, with a 
mile to spare behind if necessary. And here comes 
breakfast. 

“ Twenty minutes here, gentlemen,” says the coach- 
man as they pull up at half-past seven at the inn door. 


76 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


Have we not endured nobly this morning, and is 
not this a worthy reward for much endurance ? There 
is the low dark wainscoted room hung with sporting 
prints ; the hat-stand (with a whip or two standing 
up in it belonging to bagmen who are still snug in 
bed) by the door; the blazing fire, with the quaint 
old glass over the mantelpiece, in which is stuck a 
large card with the list of the meets for the week of 
the county hounds. The table covered with the 
whitest of cloths and of china, and bearing a pigeon- 
pie, ham, round of cold boiled beef cut from a mam- 
moth ox, and the great loaf of household bread on 
a wooden trencher. And here comes in the stout 
head waiter, puffing under a tray of hot viands ; 
kidneys and a steak, transparent rashers and poached 
eggs, buttered toast and muffins, coffee and tea, all 
smoking hot. The table can never hold it all ; the 
cold meats are removed to the sideboard, they were 
only put on for show and to give us an appetite. 
And now fall on, gentlemen all. It is a well-known 
sporting-house, and the breakfasts are famous. Two 
or three men in pink, on their way to the meet, drop 
in, and are very jovial and sharp-set, as indeed we 
all are. 

“Tea or coffee, sir?” says head waiter coming 
round to Tom. 

“ Coffee please,” says Tom, with his mouth full of 
muffin and kidney ; coffee is a treat to him, tea is not. 

Our coachman, I perceive, who breakfasts with us, 
is a cold-beef man. He also eschews hot potations, 
and addicts himself to a tankard of ale, which is 
brought him by the barmaid. Sportsman looks on 
approvingly, and orders a ditto for himself. 

Tom has eaten kidney and pigeon-pie, and im- 
bibed coffee, till his little skin is as tight as a drum ; 


PUTTING-TO” AGAIN. 


77 


and then has the further pleasure of paying head 
waiter out of his own purse, in a dignified manner, 
and w'alks out before the inn door to see the horses 
put to. This is done leisurely and in a highly- 
finished manner by the ostlers, as if they enjoyed the 
not being hurried. Coachman comes out with his 
way-bill, and puffing a fat cigar which the sports- 
man has given him. Guard emerges from the tap, 
where he prefers breakfasting, licking round a tough- 
looking doubtful cheroot, which you might tie round 
your finger, and three whiffs of which would knock 
any one else out of time. 

The pinks stand about the inn door lighting cigars 
and waiting to see us start, while their hacks are led 
up and down the market-place on which the inn 
looks. They all know our sportsman, and we feel a 
reflected credit when we see him chatting and laugh- 
ing with them. 

“ Now, sir, please,” says the coachman; all the 
rest of the passengers are up ; the guard is locking 
the hind boot. 

A good run to you ! ” says the sportsman to the 
pinks, and is by the coachman’s side in no time. 

“Let ’em go, Dick!” The ostlers fly back, 
drawing off the cloths from their glossy loins, and 
away we^go through the market-place and down the 
High Street, looking in at the first-floor windows, 
and seeing several worthy burgesses shaving thereat ; 
while all the shop-boys who are cleaning the win- 
dows, and housemaids who are doing the steps, stop 
and look pleased as we rattle past, as if we were a 
part of their legitimate morning’s amusement. We 
clear the town, and are well out between the hedge- 
rows again as the town clock strikes eight. 

The sun shines almost warmly, and breakfast has 


7'OM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


78 

oiled all springs and loosened all tongues. Tom is 
encouraged by a remark or two of the guard’s 
between the puffs of his oily cheroot, and besides is 
getting tired of not talking; he is too full of his 
destination to talk about anything else ; and so asks 
the guard if he knows Rugby. 

“ Goes through it every day of my life. Twenty 
minutes afore twelve down — ten o’clock up.” 

“ What sort of a place is it, please? ” says Tom. 

Guard looks at him with a comical expression. 

“ Werry out-o’-the-way place, sir ; no paving to the 
streets nor no lighting. ’Mazin’ big horse and 
cattle fair in autumn — lasts a week — ^just over now. 
Takes town a week to get clean after it. Fairish 
hunting country. But slow place, sir, slow place : 
off the main road, you see — only three coaches a 
day, and one on ’em a two-oss wan, more like a 
hearse nor a coach — Regulator — comes from Oxford. 
Young genl’m’n at school calls her Pig and Whistle, 
and goes up to college by her (six miles an hour) 
when they goes to enter. Belong to school, sir? ” 

‘‘Yes,” says Tom, not unwilling for a moment 
that the guard should think him an old boy. But 
then having some qualms as to the truth of the 
assertion, and seeing that if he were to assume the 
character of an old boy he couldn’t go on asking 
the questions he wanted, added — “that is to say, 
I’m on my way there. I’m a new boy.” 

The guard looked as if he knew this quite as well 
as Tom. 

“ You’re werry late, sir,” says the guard ; “ only^ 
six weeks to-day to the end of the half.” Tom as-' 
sented. “ We takes up fine loads this day six weeks, 
and Monday and Tuesday arter. Hopes we shall 
have the pleasure of carrying you back.” 


PEASHOOTERS. 


79 


Tom said he hoped they would ; but he thought 
within himself that his fate would probably be the 
Pig and Whistle. 

^‘It pays uncommon, cert’nly,” continues the 
guard. Werry free with their cash is the young^ 
genl’m’n. But, Lor’ bless you, we gets into sucb 
rows all ’long the road, what wi’ their pea-shooters, 
and long whips, and hollering, and upsetting every 
one as comes by ; I’d a sight sooner carry one or two 
on ’em, sir, as I may be a carryin’ of you now, than 
a coach-load.” 

What do they do with the pea-shooters?” in- 
quires Tom. 

“ Do wi’ ’em ! why, peppers every one’s faces as 
we comes near, ’cept the young gals, and breaks win- 
dows wi’ them too, some on ’em shoots so hard. 
Now ’twas just here last June, as we was a driving up- 
the first-day boys, they was mendin’ a quarter-mile 
of road, and there was a lot of Irish chaps, reg’lar 
roughs, a breaking stones. As we comes up, ‘ Now, 
boys,’ says young gent on the box (smart young fel- 
low and desper’t reckless), ‘ here’s fun ! Let the 
Pats have it about the ears.’ ‘ God’s sake, sir ! ’ 
says Bob (that’s my mate the coachman), ‘ don’t go 
for to shoot at ’em, they’ll knock us off the coach.’ 

‘ Damme, coachee,’ says young my lord, ‘you ain’t 
afraid; hoora, boys! let ’em have it.’ ‘Hooral’ 
sings out the others, and fill their mouths chock full 
of peas to last the whole line. Bob seeing as ’twas 
to come, knocks his hat over his eyes, hollers to his 
’osses, and shakes ’em up, and away we goes up to 
the line on ’em, twenty miles an hour. The Pats be- 
gin to hoora too, thinking it was a runaway, and first 
lot on ’em stands grinnin’ and wavin’ their old hats, 
as we comes abreast on ’em ; and then you’d ha’’ 


So tom BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 

laughed to see how took aback and choking savage 
they looked when they gets the peas a stinging all 
over ’em. But bless you, the laugh weren’t all of our 
side, sir, by a long way. We was going so fast, and 
they was so took aback, that they didn’t take what 
was up till we was half-way up the line. Then ’twas 
‘ look out all,’ surely. They howls all down the line 
fit to frighten you, some on ’em runs arter us and 
tries to clamber up behind, only we hits ’em over the 
fingers and pulls their hands off, one as had had it 
very sharp act’ly runs right at the leaders, as though 
he’d ketch ’em by the heads, only luck’ly for him he 
misses his tip, and comes over a heap o’ stones, first. 
The rest picks up stones, and gives it us right away 
till we gets out o’ shot, the young gents holding out 
werry manful with the pea-shooters and such stones 
as lodged on us, and a pretty many there was too. 
Then Bob picks hisself up again, and looks at young 
gent on box werry solemn. Bob’d had a rum un in 
the ribs, which ’d like to ha’ knocked him off the box, 
or made him drop the reins. Young gent on box 
picks hisself up, and so does we all, and looks round 
to count damage. Box’s head cut open and his hat 
gone ; ’nother young gent’s hat gone : mine knocked 
in at the side, and not one on us as wasn’t black and 
blue somewheres or another; most on ’em all over. 
Two-pound-ten to pay for damage to paint, which 
they subscribed for there and then, and give Bob and 
me a extra half-sovereign each ; but I wouldn’t go 
down that line again not for twenty half-sovereigns.” 
And the guard shook his head slowly, and got up and 
blew a clear brisk toot-toot. 

“What fun ! ” said Tom, who could scarcely con- 
tain his pride at this exploit of his future school- 


THE OLD YEOMAN. 


8l 


fellows. He longed already for the end of the half, 
that he might join them. 

’Taint such good fun though, sir, for the folk as 
meets the coach, nor for we who has to go back with 
it next day. Them Irishers last summer had all got 
stones ready for us, and was all but letting drive, and 
we’d got two reverend gents aboard too. We pulled 
up at the beginning of the line, and pacified them, and 
were never going to carry no more pea-shooters, un- 
less they promises not to fire where there’s a line of 
Irish chaps a stone-breaking.” The guard stopped 
and pulled away at his cheroot, regarding Tom be- 
nignantly the while. 

“Oh, don’t stop! tell us something more about 
the pea-shooting.” 

“ Well, there’d like to have been a pretty piece of 
work over it at Bicester, a while back. We was six 
mile from the town, when we meets an old square- 
headed grey-haired yeoman chap, a jogging along 
quite quiet. He looks up at the coach, and just then 
a pea hits him on the nose, and some ketches his cob 
behind and makes him dance upon his hind legs. I 
see’d the old boy’s face flush and look plaguy awk- 
ward, and I thought we was in for somethin’ nasty. 

“ He turns his cob’s head, and rides quietly after us 
just out of shot. How that ere cob did step ! we 
never shook him off not a dozen yards in the six mile. 
At first the young gents was werry lively on him ; but 
afore we got in, seeing how steady the old chap come 
on, they was quite quiet, and laid their heads to- 
gether what they should do. Some was for fighting, 
some for axing his pardon. He rides into the town 
close after us, comes up when we stops, and says the 
two as shot at him must come before a magistrate ; 
and a great crowd comes round, and we couldn’t get 
6 


82 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


the ’osses to. But the young uns, they all stand by 
one another, and says all or none must go, and as 
how they’d fight it out, and have to be carried. Just 
as ’twas gettin’ serious, and the old boy and the mob 
was goin’ to pull ’em off the coach, one little fellow 
jumps up and says, ‘ Here — I’ll stay, — I’m only go- 
ing three miles further. My father’s name’s Davis ; 
he’s known about here, and I’ll go before the magis- 
trate with this gentleman.’ ‘What, be thee parson 
Davis’s son?’ says the old boy. ‘Yes,’ says the 
young un. ‘ Well, I be mortal sorry to meet thee in 
such company, but for thy father’s sake and thine 
(for thee bi’st a brave young chap) I’ll say no more 
about it.’ Didn’t the boys cheer him, and the 
mob cheered the young chap — and then one of 
the biggest gets down, and begs his pardon werry 
gentlemanly for all the rest, saying as they all had 
been plaguy vexed from the first, but didn’t like to 
ax his pardon till then, ’cause they felt they hadn’t 
ought to shirk the consequences of their joke. And 
then they all got down and shook hands with the old 
boy, and asked him to all parts of the country, to 
their homes ; and we drives off twenty minutes behind 
time, with cheering and hollering as if we was county 
members. But, Lor’ bless you, sir,” says the guard, 
smacking his hand down on his knee and looking full 
into Tom’s face, “ ten minutes arter they was all as 
bad as ever.” 

Tom showed such undisguised and open-mouthed 
interest in his narrations, that the old guard rubbed 
up his memory, and launched out into a graphic his- 
tory of all the performances of the boys on the road 
for the last twenty years. Off the road he couldn’t 
go ; the exploit must have been connected with 
horses or vehicles to hang in the old fellow’s head. 


BLOW- HARD AND HIS YARNS. 


83 

Tom tried him off his own ground once or twice, 
but found he knew nothing beyond, and so let him 
have his head, and the rest of the road bowled easily 
away ; for old Blow-hard (as the boys called him) 
was a dry old file, with much kindness and humour, 
and a capital spinner of a yarn when he had broken 
the neck of his day’s work and got plenty of ale 
under his belt. 

What struck Tom’s youthful imagination most was 
the desperate and lawless character of most of the 
stories. Was the guard hoaxing him? He couldn’t 
help hoping that they were true. It’s very odd how 
almost all English boys love danger ; you can get 
ten to join a game, or climb a tree, or swim a stream, 
when there’s a chance of breaking their limbs or 
getting drowned, for one who’ll stay on level ground, 
or in his depth, or play quoits or bowls. 

The guard had just finished an account of a despe- 
rate fight which had happened at one of the fairs 
between the drovers and the farmers with their whips, 
and the boys with cricket-bats and wickets, which 
arose out of a playful but objectionable practice of 
the boys going round to the public-houses and taking 
the linch-pins out of the wheels of the gigs, and was 
moralising upon the way in which the Doctor, “a 
terrible stern man he’d heard tell,” had come down 
upon several of the performers, ^‘sending three on 
’em off next morning, each in a po-chay with a parish 
constable,” when they turned a corner and neared 
the milestone, the third from Rugby. By the stone 
two boys stood, their jackets buttoned tight, waiting 
for the coach. 

^‘Look here, sir,” says the guard, after giving a 
sharp toot-toot, there’s two on ’em ; out and out 
runners they be. They come out about twice or 


84 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


three times a week, and spirts a mile alongside of 
us.” 

And as they came up, sure enough, away went two 
boys along the footpath, keeping up with the horses ; 
the first a light clean-made fellow going on springs, 
the other stout and round-shouldered, labouring in his 
pace, but going as dogged as a bull-terrier. 

Old Blow-hard looked on admiringly. See how 
beautiful that there un holds hisself together, and 
goes from his hips, sir,” said he ; “ he’s a 'mazin’ ^ne 
runner. Now, many coachmen as drives a first-rate 
team’d put it on and try and pass ’em. But Bob, sir, 
bless you, he’s tender-hearted ; he’d sooner pull in a 
bit if he see’d ’em a gettin’ beat. I do b’lieve too 
as that there un’d sooner break his heart than let us 
go by him afore next milestone.” 

At the second milestone the boys pulled up short 
and waved their hats to the guard, who had his watch 
out and shouted “ 4.56,” thereby indicating that the 
mile had been done in four seconds under the five 
minutes. They passed several more parties of boys, 
all of them objects of the deepest interest to Tom, 
and came in sight of the town at ten minutes before 
twelve. Tom fetched a long breath, and thought he 
had never spent a pleasanter day. Before he went to 
bed he had quite settled that it must be the greatest 
day he should ever spend, and didn’t alter his opinion 
for many a long year — if he has yet. 


ARRIVAL AT RUGBY. 


85 


CHAPTER V. 

RUGBY AND FOOTBALL. 

A ND SO here’s Rugby, sir, at last, and you’ll be in 
j\^ plenty of time for dinner at the School-house, 
as I tell’d you,” said the old guard, pulling 
his horn out of its case, and tootle-tooing away ; 
while the coachman shook up his horses, and carried 
them along the side of the school close, round 
Dead-man’s Corner, past the school gates, and down 
the High Street to the Spread Eagle ; the wheelers 
in a spanking trot, and leaders cantering, in a 
style which would not have disgraced Cherry 
Bob,” “ramping, stamping, tearing, swearing Billy 
Harwood,” or any other of the old coaching heroes. 

Tom’s heart beat quick as he passed the great 
school field or close, with its noble elms, in which 
several games at football were going on, and tried 
to take in at once the long, line of grey buildings, 
beginning with the chapel, and ending with the 
School-house, the residence of the head*master, 
where the great flag was lazily waving from the 
highest round tower. And he began already to be 
proud of being a Rugby boy, as he passed the 
school-gates, with the oriel-window above, and saw 
the boys standing there, looking as if the town 
belonged to them, and nodding in a familiar manner 
to the coachman, as if any one of them would be 
quite equal to getting on the box and working the 
team down street as well as he. 

One of the young heroes, however, ran out from 
the rest, and scrambled up behind ; where, having 
righted himself and nodded to the guard with 


86 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


How do, Jem?” he turned short round to Tom, 
and, after looking him over for a minute, began — 

“ I say, you fellow, is your name Brown ? ” 

“Yes,” said Tom, in considerable astonishment; 
glad however to have lighted on some one already 
who seemed to know him. 

“ Ah, I thought so ; you know my old aunt. Miss 
East ; she lives somewhere down your way in Berk- 
shire. She wrote to me that you were coming to- 
day, and asked me to give you a lift.” 

Tom was somewhat inclined to resent the patron- 
izing air of his new friend — a boy of just about his 
own height and age, but gifted with the most tran- 
scendent coolness and assurance, which Tom felt to 
be aggravating and hard to bear, but couldn’t for 
the life of him help admiring and envying — 
especially when young my lord begins hectoring two 
or three long loafing fellows, half porter, half stable- 
man, with a strong touch of the blackguard, and in 
the end arranges with one of them, nicknamed 
Cooey, to carry Tom’s luggage up to the School- 
house for sixpence. 

“ And heark’ee, Cooey, it must be up in ten 
minutes, or no more jobs from me. Come along. 
Brown.” And away swaggers the young potentate, 
with his hands in his pockets, and Tom at his 
side. 

“All right, sir,” says Cooey, touching his hat, 
with a leer and a wink at his companions. 

“Hullo though,” says East, pulling up, and 
taking another look at Tom, “this’ll never do — 
haven’t you got a hat? — we never wear caps here. 
Only the louts wear caps. Bless you, if you were to 

go into the quadrangle with that thing on, I 

don’t know what’d happen.” The very idea was 


^ESTHETICS OF ROOFING: 


87 

quite beyond young Master East, and he looked 
unutterable things. 

Tom thought his cap a very knowing affair, but 
confessed that he had a hat in his hat-box ; which 
was accordingly at once extracted from the hind 
boot, and Tom equipped in his go-to-meeting roof, 
as his new friend called it. But this didn’t quite suit his 
fastidious taste in another minute, being too shiny; 
so, as they walk up the town, they dive into Nixon’s 
the hatter’s, and Tom is arrayed, to his utter aston- 
ishment, and without paying for it, in a regulation 
cat-skin at seven-and-sixpence ; Nixon undertaking 
to send the best hat up to the matron’s room. 
School-house, in half an hour. 

“You can send in a note for a tile oh Monday, 
and make it all right, you know,” said Mentor; 
“ we’re allowed two seven-and-sixers a half, besides 
what we bring from home.” 

Tom by 'this time began to be conscious of his 
new social position and dignities, and to luxuriate in 
the realized ambition of being a public-school boy at 
last, with a vested right of spoiling two seven-and- 
sixers in half a year. 

“You see,” said his friend, as they strolled up to- 
wards the school gates, in explanation of his conduct 
— “a great deal depends on how a fellow cuts up at 
first. If he’s got nothing odd about him, and 
answers straightforward and holds his head up, he 
gets on. Now you’ll do very well as to rig, all but 
that cap. You see I’m doing the handsome thing 
by you, because my father knows yours ; besides, I 
want to please the old lady. She gave me a half-a- 
sov. this half, and perhaps’ll double it next, if I keep 
in her good books.” 

There’s nothing for candour like a lower-school 


88 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


boy; and East was a genuine specimen — frank, 
hearty, and good-natured, well satisfied with himself 
and his position, and chock full of life and spirits, 
and all the Rugby prejudices and traditions which 
he had been able to get together, in the long course 
of one half year, during which he had been at the 
School-house. 

And Tom, notwithstanding his bumptiousness, felt 
friends with him at once, and began sucking in all 
his ways and prejudices, as fast as he could under- 
stand them. 

East was great in the character of cicerone ; he 
carried Tom through the great gates, where were 
only two or three boys. These satisfied themselves 
with the stock questions, — “You fellow, what’s your 
name ?' Where do you come from ? How old are 
you? Where do you board? and. What form are 
you in?” — and so they passed on through the quad- 
rangle and a small courtyard, upon which looked 
down a lot of little windows (belonging, as his guide 
informed him, to some of the School-house studies), 
into the matron’s room, where East introduced Tom 
to that dignitary ; made him give up the key of his 
trunk that the matron might unpack his linen, and 
told the story of the hat and of his own presence of 
mind : upon the relation whereof the matron laugh- 
ingly scolded him, for the coolest new boy in the 
house; and East, indignant at the accusation of 
newness, marched Tom off into the quadrangle, and 
began showing him the schools, and examining him 
as to his literary attainments ; the result of which 
was a prophecy that they would be in the same form, 
and could do their lessons together. 

“And now come in and see my study; we shall 


, EAST'S STUDY. 89 

have just time before dinner ; and afterwards, before 
calling over, we’ll do the close.” 

Tom followed his guide through the School-house 
hall, which opens into the quadrangle. It is a great 
room thirty feet long and eighteen high, or there- 
abouts, with two great tables running the whole 
length, and two large fireplaces at the side, with 
blazing fires in them, at one of which some* dozen 
boys were standing and lounging, some of whom 
shouted to East to stop; but he shot through with 
his convoy, and landed him in the long dark 
passages, with a large fire at the end of each upon 
which the studies opened. Into one of these, in the 
bottom passage, East bolted with our hero, slamming 
and bolting the door behind them, in case of pursuit 
from the hall, and Tom was for the first time in a 
Rugby boy’s citadel. 

He hadn’t been prepared for separate studies, and 
was not a little astonished and delighted with the 
palace in question. 

It wasn’t very large certainly, being about six feet 
long by four broad. It couldn’t be called light, as 
there were bars and a grating to the window ; which 
little precautions were necessary in the studies on the 
ground floor looking out into the close, to prevent 
the exit of small boys after locking-up, and the 
entrance of contraband articles. But it was uncom- 
monly comfortable to look at, Tom thought. The 
space under the window at the further end was 
occupied by a square table covered with a reasonably 
clean and whole red and blue check tablecloth ; a 
hard-seated sofa covered with red stuff occupied one 
side, running up to the end, and making a seat for 
one, or, by sitting close, for two, at the table ; and 
a good stout wooden chair afforded a seat to another 


90 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS, 


boy, so that three could sit and work together. The 
walls were wainscoted half-way up, the wainscot 
being covered with green baize, the remainder with 
a bright-patterned paper, on which hung three or 
four prints, of dogs’ heads, Grimaldi winning the 
Aylesbury steeplechase, Amy Robsart, the reigning 
Waverley beauty of the day, and Tom Crib in a post- 
ure of defence, which did no credit to the science of 
that hero, if truly represented. Over the door were 
a row of hat-pegs, and on each side bookcases with 
cupboards at the bottom ; shelves and cupboards 
being filled indiscriminately with school-books, a 
cup or two, a mousetrap, and brass candlesticks, leather 
straps, a fustian bag, and some curious-looking arti- 
cles, which puzzled Tom not a little, until his friend 
explained that they were climbing irons, and showed 
their use. A cricket-bat and small fishing-rod stood 
up in one corner. 

This was the residence of East and another boy 
in the same form, and had .more interest for Tom 
than Windsor Castle, or any other residence in the 
British Isles. For was he not about to become the 
joint owner of a similar home, the first place which 
he could call his own ? One’s own ! What a charm 
there is in the words ! How long it takes boy and 
man to find out their worth ! how fast most of us 
hold on to them ! faster and more jealously the 
nearer we are to that general home into which we 
can take nothing, but must go naked as we came 
into the world. When shall we learn that he who 
multiplieth possessions multiplieth troubles, and that 
the one single use of things which we call our own 
is that they may be his who hath need of them ? 

“And shall I have a study like this too?” said 
Tom. 


^^OUR OWN'^ AND THE USE THEREOF. gi 

“Yes, of course, you’ll be chummed with some 
fellow on Monday, and you can sit here till then.” 

“ What nice places ! ” 

“They’re well enough,” answered East patroniz- 
ingly, “ only uncommon cold at nights sometimes. 
Gower — that’s my chum — and I make a fire with 
paper on the floor after supper generally, only that 
makes it so smoky.” 

“ But there’s a big fire out in the passage,” said 
Tom. 

“ Precious little good we get out of that though,” 
said East; “Jones the praepostor has the study at 
the fire end, and he has rigged up an iron rod and 
green baize curtain across the passage, which he 
draws at night, and sits there with his door open, so 
he gets all the fire, and hears if we come out of our 
studies after eight, or make a noise. However, he’s 
taken to sitting in the fifth-form room lately, so we 
do get a bit of fire now sometimes ; only to keep a 
sharp look-out that he don’t catch you behind his 
curtain when he comes down — that’s all.” 

A quarter-past one now struck, and the bell began 
tolling for dinner, so they went into the hall and 
took their places, Tom at the very bottom of the 
second table, next to the praepostor (who sat at the 
end to keep order there), and East a few paces 
higher. And now Tom for the first time saw his 
future schoolfellows in a body. In they came, some 
hot and ruddy from football or long walks, some 
pale and chilly from hard reading in their studies, 
some from loitering over the fire at the pastrycook’s, 
dainty mortals, bringing with them pickles and 
sauce-bottles to help them with their dinners. And 
a great big-bearded man, whom Tom took for a 
master, began calling over the names, while the 


92 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


great joints were being rapidly carved on a third 
table in the corner by the old verger and the house- 
keeper. Tom’s turn came last, and meanwhile he 
was all eyes, looking first with awe at the great 
man who sat close to him, and was helped first, and 
who read a hard-looking book all the time he was 
eating ; and when he got up and walked off to the 
fire, at the small boys round him, some of whom 
were reading, and the rest talking in whispers to 
one another, or stealing one another’s bread, or 
shooting pellets, or digging their forks through the 
tablecloth. However, notwithstanding his curi- 
osity, he managed to make a capital dinner by the 
time the big man called Stand up!” and said 
grace. 

As soon as dinner was over, and Tom had been 
questioned by such of his neighbours as were curious 
as to his birth, parentage, education, and other like 
matters. East, who evidently enjoyed his new dig- 
nity of patron and Mentor, proposed having a look 
at the close, which Tom, athirst for knowledge, gladly 
assented to, and they went out through the quad- 
rangle and past the big fives’ -court, into the great 
playground. 

“That’s the chapel, you see,” said East, “and 
there just behind it is the place for fights ; you see 
it’s most out of the way of the masters, who all live 
on the other side and don’t come by here after first 
lesson or callings-over. That’s when the fights come 
off. And all this part where we are is the little side- 
ground, right up to the trees, and on the other side 
of the trees is the big side-ground, where the great 
matches are played. And there’s the island in the 
furthest corner ; you’ll know that well enough next 
half, when there’s island fagging. I say, it’s horrid 


WHITE TROUSERS IN NOVEMBER. 


93 


cold, let’s have a run across,” and away went East, 
Tom close behind him. East was evidently putting 
his best foot foremost, and Tom, who was mighty 
proud of his running, and not a little anxious to 
show his friend that although a new boy he was no 
milksop, laid himself down to the work in his very 
best style. Right across the close they went, each 
doing all he knew, and there wasn’t a yard between 
them when they pulled up at the island moat. 

“ I say,” said East, as soon as he got his wind, 
looking with much increased respect at Tom, “ you 
ain’t a bad scud, not by no means. Well, I’m as 
warm as a toast now.” 

“ But why do you wear white trousers in Novem- 
ber?” said Tom. He had been struck by this pecu- 
liarity in the costume of almost all the School-house 
boys. 

“ Why, bless us, don’t you know? — No, I forgot. 
Why, to-day’s the School-house match. Our house 
plays the whole of the School at football. And we 
• all wear white trousers, to show ’em we don’t care for 
hacks. You’re in luck to come to-day. You just 
will see a match ; and Brooke’s going to let me play 
in quarters. That’s more than he’ll do for any other 
lower-school boy, except James, and he’s fourteen.” 

“ Who’s Brooke ? ” 

Why that big fellow who called over at dinner, 
to be sure. He’s cock of the school, and head of 
the School-house side, and the best kick and charger 
in Rugby.” 

“ Oh, but do show me where they play? And tell 
me about it. I love football so, and have played all 
my life. Won’t Brooke let me play? ” 

“Not he,” said East, with some indignation; 
“ why, you don’t know the rules — you’ll be a month 


94 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


learning them. And then it’s no joke playing-up in 
a match, I can tell you. Quite another thing from 
your private school games. Why, there’s been two 
collar-bones broken this half, and a dozen fellows 
lamed. And last year a fellow had his leg broken.” 

Tom listened with the profoundest respect to this 
chapter of accidents, and followed East across the 
level ground till they came to a sort of gigantic gal- 
lows of two poles eighteen feet high, fixed upright 
in the ground some fourteen feet apart, with a cross 
bar running from one to the other at the height of ten 
feet or thereabouts. 

“This is one of the goals,” said East, “and you 
see the other across there, right opposite, under the 
Doctor’s wall. Well, the match is for the best of 
three goals ; whichever side kicks two goals wins : 
and it won’t do, you see, just to kick the ball through 
these posts, it must go over the cross bar ; any 
height’ll do, so long as it’s between the posts. You’ll 
have to stay in goal to touch the ball when it rolls 
behind the posts, because if the other side touch it 
they have a try at goal. Then we fellows in quarters, 
we play just about in front of goal here, and have to 
turn the ball and kick it back before the big fellows 
on the other side can follow it up. And in front of 
us all the big fellows play, and that’s where the scrum- 
mages are mostly.” 

Tom’s respect increased as he struggled to make 
out his friend’s technicalities, and the other set to 
work to explain the mysteries of “off your side,” 
“drop-kicks,” “punts,” “places,” and the other 
intricacies of the great science of football. 

“ But how do you keep the ball between the goals ? ’ ’ 
said he. “ I can’t see why it mightn’t go right down to 
the chapel.” 


THE PUNT-ABOUT. 


95 

Why, that’s out of play,” answered East. ** You 
see this gravel walk running down all along this side 
of the playing-ground, and the line of elms opposite 
on the other? Well, they’re the bounds. As soon 
as the ball gets past them, it’s in touch, and out of 
play. And then whoever first touches it has to knock 
it straight out amongst the players-up, who make two 
lines with a space between them, every fellow going on 
his own side. Ain’t there just fine scrummages then ! 
and the three trees you see there which come out into 
the play, that’s a tremendous place when the ball 
hangs there, for you get thrown against the trees, and 
that’s worse than any hack.” 

Tom wondered within himself as they strolled 
back again towards the fives’ court, whether the 
matches were really such break-neck affairs as East 
represented, and whether, if they were, he should ever 
get to like them and play-up well. 

He hadn’t long to wonder, however, for next 
minute East cried out, “Hurra! here’s the punt- 
about, — come along and try your hand at a kick.” 
The punt-about is the practice ball, which is just 
brought out and kicked about anyhow from one boy 
to another before callings-over and dinner, and at 
other odd times. They joined the boys who had 
brought it out, all small School-house fellows, friends 
of East ; and Tom had the pleasure of trying his 
skill, and performed very creditably, after first driv- 
ing his foot three inches into the ground, and then 
nearly kicking his leg into the air, in vigorous 
efforts to accomplish a drop-kick after the manner 
of East. 

Presently more boys and bigger came out, and 
boys from other houses on their way to calling-over, 
and more balls were sent for. The crowd thickened 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


96 

as three o’clock approached ; and when the hour 
struck, one hundred and fifty boys were hard at work. 
Then the balls were held, the master of the week 
came down in cap and gown to calling-over, and the 
whole school of three hundred boys swept into the 
big school to answer to their names. 

“ I may come in, mayn’t I ?” said Tom, catching 
East by the arm and longing to feel one of them. 

“ Yes, come along, nobody’ll say anything. You 
won’t be so eager to get into calling-over after a 
month,” replied his friend; and they marched into 
the big school together, and up to the further end, 
where that illustrious form, the lower fourth, which 
had the honour of East’s patronage for the time being, 
stood. 

The master mounted into the high desk by the 
door, and one of the praepostors of the week stood 
by him on the steps, the other three marching up and 
down the middle of the school with their canes, 
calling out ‘^Silence, silence!” The sixth form 
stood close by the door on the left, some thirty in 
number, mostly great big grown men, as Tom thought, 
surveying them from a distance with awe. The fifth 
form behind them, twice their number and not quite 
so big. These on the left ; and on the right the 
lower fifth, shell, and all the junior forms in order; 
while up the middle marched the three praepos- 
tors. 

Then the praepostor who stands by the master calls 
out the names, beginning with the sixth form, and 
as he calls, each boy answers ‘‘Here ” to his name, 
and walks out. Some of the sixth stop at the door 
to turn the whole string of boys into the close ; it is 
a great match day, and every boy in the school, 
will-he, nill-he, must be there. The rest of the sixth 


<*THEY TRUST TO OUR HONOUR: 


go forwards into the close, to see that no one escapes 
by any of the side gates. 

To-day, however, being the School-house match, 
none of the School-house praepostors stay by the 
door to watch for truants of their side ; there is 
carte blaiiche to the School-house fags to go where 
they like: “They trust to our honour,” as East 
proudly informs Tom; “they know very well that 
no School-house boy would cut the match. If he did, 
we’d very soon cut him, I can tell you.” 

The master of the week being short-sighted, and 
the praepostors of the week small and not well up to 
their work, the lower school boys employ the ten 
minutes which elapse before their names are called, 
in pelting one another vigorously with acorns, which 
fly about in all directions. The small praepostors 
dash in every now and then, and generally chastise 
some quiet, timid boy who is equally afraid of acorns 
and canes, while the principal performers get dex- 
terously out of the way; and so calling-over rolls on 
somehow, much like the big world, punishments 
lighting on wrong shoulders, and matters going gen- 
erally in a queer, cross-grained way, but the end 
coming somehow, which is after all the great point. 
And now the master of the week has finished, and 
locked up the big school ; and the praepostors of the 
week come out, sweeping the last remnant of the ^ 
school fags — who had been loafing about the corners 
by the fives’ court, in hopes of a chance of bolting — 
before them into the close.' 

“ Hold the punt-about ! ” “To the goals ! ” are 
the cries, and all stray balls are impounded by the 
authorities ; and the whole mass of bo)^s moves up 
towards the two goals, dividing as they go into three 
bodies. That little band on the left, consisting of 

7 


TOM B TOWN’S SCHOOL DA YS. 


98 

from fifteen to twenty boys, Tom amongst them, who 
are making for the goal under the School-house wall, 
are the School-house boys who are not to play-up, 
and have to stay in goal. The larger body moving 
to the island goal, are the school-boys in a like pre- 
dicament. The great mass in the middle are the 
players-up, both sides mingled together ; they are 
hanging their jackets, and, all who mean real work, 
their hats, waistcoats, neck-handkerchiefs, and braces, 
on the railings round the small trees ; and there they 
go by twos and threes up to their respective grounds. 
There is none of the colour and tastiness of get-up, 
you will perceive, which lends, such a life to the 
present game at Rugby, making the dullest and worst- 
fought match a pretty sight. Now each house has 
its own uniform of cap and jersey, of some lively 
colour : but at the time we are speaking of, plush caps 
have not yet come in or uniforms of any sort, ex- 
cept the School-house white trousers, which are 
abominably cold to-day : let us get to work, bare- 
headed and girded with our plain leather straps — but 
we mean business, gentlemen. 

And now that the two sides have fairly sundered, 
and each occupies its own ground, and we get a good 
look at them, what absurdity is this? You don’t 
mean to say that those fifty or sixty boys in white 
trousers, many of them quite small, are going to play 
that huge mass opposite ? Indeed I do, gentlemen ; 
they’re going to try at any rate, and won’t make 
such a bad fight of it either, mark my word ; for 
hasn’t old Brooke won the toss, with his lucky half- 
penny, and got choice of goals and kick-off? The 
new ball you may see lie there quite by itself, in the 
middle, pointing towards the school or island goal ; 
in another minute it will be well on its way there. 


OLD BROCKETS GENERALSHIP. 


99 


Use that minute in remarking how the School-house 
side is drilled. You will see in the first place, that 
the sixth-form boy, who has the charge of goal, has 
spread his force (the goal-keepers) so as to occupy 
the whole space behind the goal-posts, at distances 
of about five yards apart ; a safe and well-kept goal 
is the foundation of all good play. Old Brooke is 
talking to the captain of quarters; and now he 
moves away ; see how that youngster spreads his men 
(the light brigade) carefully over the ground, half- 
way between their own goal and the body of their 
own players-up (the heavy brigade). These again 
play in several bodies ; there is young Brooke and 
the bull-dogs — mark them well — they are the “fight- 
ing brigade,” the “die-hards,” larking about at 
leap-frog to keep themselves warm, and playing 
tricks on one another. And on each side of old 
Brooke, who is now standing in the middle of the 
ground and just going to kick off, you see a separate 
wing of players-up, each with a boy of acknowledged 
prowess to look to — here Warner, and there Hedge ; 
but over all is old Brooke, absolute as he of Russia, 
but wisely and bravely ruling over willing and 
worshipping subjects, a true football king. His face 
is earnest and careful as he glances a last time over 
his array, but full of pluck and hope, the sort of look 
I hope to see in my general when I go out to fight. 

The School side is not organized in the same way. 
The goal-keepers are all in lumps, anyhow and 
nohow; you can’t distinguish between the players- 
up and the boys in quarters, and there is divided 
leadership; but with such odds in strength and 
weight it must take more than that to hinder them 
from winning ; and so their leaders seem to think, 
for they let the players-up manage themselves. 


lOO 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


But now look, there is a slight move forward of the 
School-house wings ; a shout of “ Are you ready? ” 
and loud affirmative reply. Old Brooke takes half-a- 
dozen quick steps, and away goes the ball spinning 
towards the school goal ; seventy yards before it 
touches ground, and at no point above twelve or fif- 
teen feet high, a model kick-off ; and the School-house 
cheer and rush on ; the ball is returned, and they 
meet it and drive it back amongst the masses of the 
School already in motion. Then the two sides close, 
and you can see nothing for minutes but a swaying 
crowd of boys, at one point violently agitated. That 
is where the ball is, and there are the keen players to 
be met, and the glory and the hard knocks to be got : 
you hear the dull thud thud of the ball, and the shouts 
of “ Off your side,” Down with him,” ‘‘Put him 
over,” “Bravo!” This is what we call a scrum- 
mage, gentlemen, and the first scrummage in a School- 
house match was no joke in the consulship of Plan- 
cus. 

But see I it has broken ; the ball is driven out on 
the School-house side, and a rush of the School car- 
ries it past the School-house players-up. “ Look out 
in quarters,” Brooke’s and twenty other voices ring 
out ; no need to call though, the School-house captain 
of quarters has caught it on the bound, dodges the 
foremost school-boys, who are heading the rush, and 
sends it back with a good drop-kick well into the ene- 
my’s country. And then follows rush upon rush, and 
scrummage upon scrummage, the ball now driven 
through into the School-house quarters, and now into 
the School goal ; for the School-House have not lost 
the advantage which the kick-off and a slight wind 
gave them at the outset, and are slightly “ penning ” 
their adversaries. You say you don’t see much in it 


no IV TO GO IN. 


loi 


all ; nothing but a struggling mass of boys, and a leath- 
er ball, which seems to excite them all to great fury, 
as a red rag does a bull. My dear sir, a battle would 
look much the same to you, except that the boys 
would be men, and the balls iron; but a battle would 
be worth your looking at for all that, and so is a foot- 
ball match. You can’t be expected to appreciate the 
delicate strokes of play, the turns by which a game is 
lost and won, — it takes an old player to do that, but 
the broad philosophy of football you can understand 
if you will. Come along with me a little nearer, and 
let us consider it together. 

The ball has just fallen again where the two sides 
are thickest, and they close rapidly around it in a 
scrummage ; it must be driven through now by force 
or skill, till it flies out on one side or the other. 
Look how differently the boys face it ! Here come 
two of the bull-dogs, bursting through the outsiders ; 
in they go, straight to the heart of the scrummage, 
bent on driving that ball out on the opposite side. 
That is what they mean to do. My sons, my sons ! 
you are too hot ; you have gone past the ball, and 
must struggle now right through the scrummage, and 
get round and back again to your own side, before 
you can be of any further use. Here comes young 
Brooke ; he goes in as straight as you, but keeps his 
head, and backs and bends, holding himself still be- 
hind the ball, and driving it furiously when he gets 
the chance. Take a leaf out of his book, you young 
chargers. Here come Speedicut, and Flashman the 
School-house bully, with shouts and great action. 
Won’t you two come up to young Brooke, after lock- 
ing up, by the School-house fire, with “ Old fellow, 
wasn’t that just a splendid scrummage by the three 
trees ! ” But he knows you, and so do we. You 


102 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


don’t really want to drive that ball through that 
scrummage, chancing all hurt for the glory of the 
School-house — but to make us think that’s what you 
want — a vastly different thing; and fellows of your 
kidney will never go through more than the skirts of 
a scrummage, where it’s all push and no kicking. 
We respect boys who keep out of it, and don’t sham 
going in ; but you — we had rather not say what we 
think of you. 

Then the boys who are bending and watching on 
the outside, mark them — they are most useful play- 
ers, the dodgers ; who seize on the ball the moment 
it rolls out from amongst the chargers, and away with 
it across to the opposite goal ; they seldom go into 
the scrummage, but must have more coolness than the 
chargers : as endless as are boys’ characters, so are 
their ways of facing or not facing a scrummage at 
football. 

Three-quarters of an hour are gone ; first winds are 
failing, and weight and numbers beginning to tell. 
Yard by yard the School-house have been driven 
back, contesting every inch of ground. The bull- 
dogs are the colour of mother earth from shoulder to 
ankle, except young Brooke, who has a marvellous 
knack of keeping his legs. The School-house are 
being penned in their turn, and now the ball is be- 
hind their goal, under the Doctor’s wall. The Doc- 
tor and some of his family are there looking on, and 
seem as anxious as any boy for the success of the 
School-house. We get a minute’s breathing time 
before old Brooke kicks out, and he gives the word to 
play strongly for touch, by the three trees. Away 
goes the ball, and the bull-dogs after it, and in an- 
other minute there is a shout of ‘‘In touch,” “Our 
ball. ’ ’ Now’s your time, old Brooke, while your men 


YOUNG BROCKETS RUSH. 


103 


are still fresh. He stands with the ball in his hand, 
while the two sides form in deep lines opposite one 
another : he must strike it straight out between them. 
The lines are thickest close to him, but young Brooke 
and two or three of his men are shifting up further, 
where the opposite line is weak. Old Brooke strikes 
it out straight and strong, and it falls opposite his 
brother. Hurra ! that rush has taken it right through 
the School line, and away past the three trees, far into 
their quarters, and young Brooke and the bull-dogs 
are close upon it. The School leaders rush back 
shouting “ Look out in goal,” and strain every nerve 
to catch him, but they are after the fleetest foot in 
Rugby. There they go straight for the School goal- 
posts, quarters scattering before them. One after 
another the bull-dogs go down, but young Brooke 
holds on. “He is down.” No! a long stagger, 
and the danger is past ; that was the shock of Crew, 
the most dangerous of dodgers. And now he is close 
to the School goal, the ball not three yards before 
him. There is a hurried rush of the School fags to 
the spot, but no one throws himself on the ball, the 
only chance, and young Brooke has touched it right 
under the School goal-posts. 

The School leaders come up furious, and admin- 
ister toco to the wretched fags nearest at hand : they 
may well be angry, for it is all Lombard-street to a 
china orange that the School-hous.e kick a goal with 
the ball touched in such a good place. Old Brooke 
of course will kick it out, but who shall catch and 
place it ? Call Crab Jones. Here he comes, saunter- 
ing along with a straw in his mouth, the queerest, 
coolest fish in Rugby : if he were tumbled into the 
moon this minute, he would just pick himself up 
without taking his hands out of his pockets or turn- 


104 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


ing a hair. But it is a moment when the boldest 
charger’s heart beats quick. Old Brooke stands with 
the ball under his arm motioning the School back ; 
he will not kick-out till they are all in goal, behind 
the posts ; they are all edging forwards, inch by inch, 
to get nearer for the rush at Crab Jones, who stands 
there in front of old Brooke to catch the ball. If 
they can reach and destroy him before he catches, 
the danger is over ; and with one and the same rush 
they will carry it right away to the School-house goal. 
Fond hope ! it is kicked out and caught beautifully. 
Crab strikes his heel into the ground, to mark the 
spot where the ball was caught, beyond which the 
School line may not advance ; but there they stand, 
five deep, ready to rush the moment the ball touches 
the ground. Take plenty of room ! don’t give the 
rush a chance of reaching you ! place it true and 
steady ! Trust Crab Jones — he has made a small hole 
with his heel for the ball to lie on, by which he is 
resting on one knee, with his eye on old Brooke. 
‘‘ Now ! ” Crab places the ball at the word, old 
Brooke kicks, and it rises slowly and truly as the 
School rush forward. 

Then a moment’s pause, while both sides look up 
at the spinning ball. There it flies, straight between 
the two posts, some five feet above the cross-bar, an 
unquestioned goal ; and a shout of real genuine joy 
rings out from the School-house players-up, and a 
faint echo of it comes over the close from the goal- 
keepers under the Doctor’s wall. A goal in the first 
hour — such a thing hasn’t been done in the School- 
house match this five years. 

“ Over !” is the cry: the two sides change goals, 
and the School-house goal-keepers come threading 
their way across through the masses of the School ; 


GRIFFITHS BASKETS. 


105 

the most openly triumphant of them, amongst whom 
is Tom, a School-house boy of two hours’ standing, 
getting their ears boxed in the transit. Tom indeed 
is excited beyond measure, and it is all the sixth- 
form boy, kindest and safest of goal-keepers, has 
been able to do, to keep him from rushing out when- 
ever the ball has been near their goal. So he holds 
him by his side, and instructs him in the science of 
touching. 

At this moment Griffith, the itinerant vendor of 
oranges from Hill Morton, enters the close with his 
heavy baskets ; there is a rush of small boys upon the 
little pale-faced man, the two sides mingling together, 
subdued by the great Goddess Thirst, like the 
English and French by the streams in the Pyrenees. 
The leaders are past oranges and apples, but some of 
them visit their coats, and apply innocent looking 
ginger-beer bottles to their mouths. It is no ginger- 
beer though, I fear, and will do you no good. One 
short mad rush, and then a stitch in the side, and no 
more honest play ; that’s what comes of those 
bottles. 

But now Griffith’s baskets are empty, the ball is 
placed again midway, and the School are going to 
kick off. Their leaders have sent their lumber into 
goal, and rated the rest soundly, and one hundred 
and twenty picked players-up are there, bent on 
retrieving the game. They are to keep the ball in 
front of the School-house goal, and then to drive it 
in by sheer strength and weight. They mean heavy 
play and no mistake, and so old Brooke sees ; and 
places Crab Jones in quarters just before the goal, 
with four or five picked players, who are to keep the 
ball away to the sides, where a try at goal, if ob- 
tained, will be less dangerous than in front. He 


Io6 tom BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 

himself, and Warner and Hedge, who have saved 
themselves till now, will lead the charges. 

“Are you ready?” “Yes.” And away comes 
the ball kicked high in the air, to give the School 
time to rush on and catch it as it falls. And here 
they are amongst us. Meet them like Englishmen, 
you School-house boys, and charge them home. 
Now is the time to show what mettle is in you — and 
there shall be a warm seat by the hall fire, and honour, 
and lots of bottled beer to-night, for him who does 
his duty in the next half-hour. And they are well 
met. Again and again the cloud of their players- 
up gathers before our goal, and comes threatening 
on, and Warner or Hedge, with young Brooke and 
the relics of the bull-dogs, break through and carry 
the ball back ; and old Brooke ranges the field like 
Job’s war-horse, the thickest scrummage parts asunder 
before his rush, like the waves before a clipper’s 
bows ; his cheery voice rings over the field, and his 
eye is everywhere. And if these miss the ball, and 
it rolls dangerously in front of our goal. Crab Jones 
and his men have seized it and sent it away towards 
the sides with the unerring drop-kick. This is worth 
living for ; the whole sum of school-boy existence 
gathered up into one straining, struggling half-hour, 
a half-hour worth a year of common life. 

The quarter to five has struck, and the play 
slackens for a minute before goal ; but there is Crew, 
the artful dodger, driving the ball in behind our goal, 
on the island side, where our quarters are weakest. 
Is there no one to meet him ? Yes ! look at little 
East ! the ball is just at equal distances between the 
two, and they rush together, the young man of 
seventeen and the boy of twelve, and kick it at the 
same moment. Crew passes on without a stagger ; 


EAST’S CHARGE. 


107 

East is hurled forward by the shock, and plunges on 
his shoulders, as if he would bury himself in the 
ground \ but the ball rises straight into the air, and 
falls behind Crew’s back, while the ‘‘bravos” of 
the School-house attest the pluckiest charge of all 
that hard-fought day. Warner picks East up lame 
and half stunned, and he hobbles back into goal 
conscious of having played the man. 

And now the last minutes are come, and the 
School gather for their last rush every boy of the 
hundred and twenty who has a run left in him. 
Reckless of the defence of their own goal, on they 
come across the level big-side ground, the ball well 
down amongst them straight for our goal, like the 
column of the Old Guard up the slope at Waterloo. 
All former charges have been child’s play to this. 
Warner and Hedge have met them, but still on they 
come. The bull-dogs rush in for the last time ; 
they are hurled over or carried back, striving hand, 
foot, and eyelids. Old Brooke comes sweeping 
round the skirts of the play, and, turning short 
round, picks out the very heart of the scrummage, 
and plunges in. It wavers for a moment — he has 
the ball ! No, it has passed him, and his voice rings 
out clear over the advancing tide “ Look out in 
goal.” Crab Jones catches it for a moment; but 
before he can kick, the rush is upon him and passes 
over him ; and he picks himself up behind them 
with his straw in his mouth, a little dirtier, but as 
cool as ever. 

The ball rolls slowly in behind the School-house 
goal not three yards in front of a dozen of the 
biggest School players-up. 

There stand the School-house praepostor, safest of 
goal-keepers, and Tom Brown by his side, who has 


lo8 tom BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 

learned his trade by this time. Now is your time, 
Tom. The blood of all the Browns is up, and the 
two rush in together, and throw themselves on the 
ball, under the very feet of the advancing column ; 
the praepostor on his hands and knees arching his 
back, and Tom all along on his face. Over them 
topple the leaders of the rush, shooting over the 
back of the praepostor, but falling flat on Tom, and 
knocking all the wind out of his small carcase. 
“ Our ball,” says the praepostor, rising with his 
prize; “but get up there, there’s a little fellow 
under you.” They are hauled and roll off him, and. 
Tom is discovered a motionless body. 

Old Brooke picks him up. “Stand back, give 
him air,” he says ; and then feeling his limbs, adds, 
“ No bones broken. How do you feel, young un ? ” 

“ Hah-hah,” gasps Tom as his wind comes back, 
“Pretty well, thank you — all right.” 

“ Who is he?” says Brooke. “ Oh, it’s Brown ; 
he’s a new boy; I know him,” says East, coming 
up. 

“ Well, he is a plucky youngster, and will make a 
player,” says Brooke. 

And five o’clock strikes. “No side” is called, 
and the first day of the School-house match is over. 

o 

CHAPTER VI. 

AFTER THE MATCH. 

A S the boys scattered away from the ground, and 
East leaning on Tom’s arm, and limping 
along, was beginning to consider what luxury 
they should go and buy for tea to celebrate that 


AFTER THE MATCH 


109 


glorious victory, the two Brookes came striding by. 
Old Brooke caught sight of East, and stopped ; put 
his hand kindly on his shoulder and said, “Bravo, 
youngster, you played famously ; not much the mat- 
ter, I hope ? ” 

“No, nothing at all,” said East, “ only a little 
twist from that charge.” 

“Well, mind and get all right for next Saturday;” 
and the leader passed on, leaving East better for 
those few words than all the opodeldoc in England 
would have made him, and Tom ready to give one 
of his ears for as much notice. Ah ! light words of 
those whom we love and honour, what a power ye 
are, and how carelessly wielded by those who can 
use you ! Surely for these things also God will ask 
an account. 

“Tea’s directly after locking-up, you see,” said 
East, hobbling along as fast as he could, “so you 
come along down to Sally Harrowell’s ; that’s our 
school-house tuck-shop — she bakes such stunning 
murphies, we’ll have a penn’orth each for tea; come 
along, or they’ll all be gone.” 

Tom’s new purse and money burnt in his pocket ; 
he wondered, as they toddled through the quad- 
rangle and along the street, whether East would be 
insulted if he suggested further extravagance, as he 
had not sufficient faith in a pennyworth of potatoes. 
At last he blurted out, — 

“ I say, East, can’t we get something else besides 
potatoes? I’ve got lots of money, you know.” 

“Bless us, yes, I forgot,” said East, “you’ve 
only just come. You see all my tin’s been gone 
this twelve weeks, it hardly ever lasts beyond the 
first fortnight ; and our allowances were all stopped 
this morning for broken windows, so I haven’t got a 


no 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS, 


penny. I’ve got a tick at Sally’s, of course ; but 
then I hate running it high, you see, towards the 
end of the half, ’cause one has to shell out for it all 
directly one comes back, and that’s a bore.” 

Tom didn’t understand much of this talk, but 
seized on the fact that East had no money, and was 
denying himself some little pet luxury in conse- 
quence. *^Well, what shall I buy? ” said he; I’m 
uncommon hungry.” 

“ I say,” said East, stopping fo look at him and 
rest his leg, “ you’re a trump, Brown. I’ll do the 
same by you next half Let’s have a pound of 
sausages, then ; that’s the best grub for tea I know 
of” 

‘‘Very well,” said Tom, as pleased as possible; 
“ where do they sell them?” 

“ Oh, over here, just opposite ;” and they crossed 
the street and walked into the cleanest little front 
room of a small house, half parlour, half shop, and 
bought a pound of most particular sausages; East 
talking pleasantly to Mrs. Porter while she put them 
in paper, and Tom doing the paying part. 

From Porter’s they adjourned to Sally Harrowell’s, 
where they found a lot of School-house boys waiting 
for the roast potatoes, and relating their own exploits 
in the day’s match at the top of their voices. The 
street opened at once, into Sally’s kitchen, a low, 
brick-floored room, with large recess for fire, and 
chimney-corner seats. Poor little Sally, the most 
good-natured and much enduring of womankind, 
was bustling about with a napkin in her hand, from 
her own oven to those of the neighbours’ cottages, 
up the yard at the back of the house. Stumps, her 
husband, a short, easy-going shoemaker, with a 
beery humorous eye and ponderous calves, who 


TEA AND ITS LUXURIES. 


Ill 


lived mostly on his wife’s earnings, stood in a corner 
of the room, exchanging shots of the roughest 
description of repartee with every boy in turn. 
“ Stumps, you lout, you’ve had too much beer again 
to-day.” “ ’Twasn’t of your paying for, then.” — 

Stumps’s calves are running down into his ankles, 
they want to get to grass.” “ Better be doing that, 
than gone altogether like yours,” &c., &c. Very 
poor stuff it was, but it served to make time pass ; 
and every now and then Sally arrived in the middle 
with a smoking tin of potatoes, which were cleared 
off in a few seconds, each boy as he seized his lot 
running off to the house with “ Put me down two- 
penn’orth, Sally;” “Put down three-penn’orth 
between me and Davis,” &c. How she ever kept 
the accounts so straight as she did, in her head and 
on her slate, was a perfect wonder. 

East and Tom got served at last, and started back 
for the School-house just as the locking-up bell began 
to ring; East on the way recounting the life and 
adventures of Stumps, who was a character. 
Amongst his other small avocations, he was the hind 
carrier of a sedan-chair, the last of its race, in which 
the Rugby ladies still went out to tea, and in which, 
when he was fairly harnessed and carrying a load, it 
was the delight of small and mischievous boys to 
follow him and whip his calves. This was too much 
for the temper even of Stumps, and he would pursue 
his tormentors in a vindictive and apoplectic manner 
when released, but was easily pacified by twopence 
to buy beer with. 

The lower school-boys of the School-house, some 
fifteen in number, had tea in the lower-fifth school, 
and were presided over by the old verger or head- 
porter. Each boy had a quarter of a loaf of bread 


112 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


and pat of butter, and as much tea as he pleased ; 
and there was scarcely one who didn’t add to this 
some further luxury, such as baked potatoes, a herring, 
sprats, or something of the sort ; but few, at this 
period of the half-year, could live up to a pound of 
Porter’s sausages, and East was in great magnificence 
upon the strength of theirs. He had produced a 
toasting-fork from his study, and set Tom to toast 
the sausages, while he mounted guard over their 
butter and potatoes; ^‘’cause,” as he explained, 
“ you’re a new boy, and they’ll play you some trick 
and get our butter, but you can toast just as well as 
1.” So Tom, in the midst of three or four more 
urchins similarly employed, toasted his face and the 
sausages at the same time before the huge fire, till the 
latter cracked ; when East from his watch-tower 
shouted that they were done ; and then the feast 
proceeded, and the festive cups of tea were filled and 
emptied, and Tom imparted of the sausages in small 
bits to many neighbours, and thought he had never 
tasted such good potatoes or seen such jolly boys. 
They on their parts waived all ceremony, and pegged 
away at the sausages and potatoes, and, remembering 
Tom’s performance in goal, voted East’s new crony 
a brick. After tea, and while the things were being 
cleared away, they gathered round the fire, and the 
talk on the match still went on ; and those who had 
them to show, pulled up their trousers and showed 
the hacks they had received in the good cause. 

They were soon however all turned out of the 
school, and East conducted Tom up to his bedroom, 
that he might get on clean things and wash himself 
before singing. 

What’s singing?” said Tom, taking his head 


SUPPER. 


113 

out of his basin, where he had been plunging it in 
cold water. 

“ Well, you are jolly green,” answered his friend 
from a neighbouring basin. “ Why, the last six Satur- 
days of every half, we sing of course ; and this is the 
first of them. No first lesson to do, you know, and 
lie in bed to-morrow morning.” 

“ But who sings ?” 

“ Why everybody, of course ; you’ll see soon 
enough. We begin directly after supper, and sing 
till bed-time. It ain’t such good fun now though as 
in the summer half, ’cause then we sing in the little 
fives’ court, under the library, you know. We take 
our tables, and the big boys sit around, and drink 
beer ; double allowance on Saturday nights ; and we 
cut about the quadrangle between the songs, and it 
looks like a lot of robbers in a cave. And the louts 
come and pound at the great gates, and we pound 
back again, and shout at them. But this half we only 
sing in the hall. Come along down to my study.” 

Their principal employment in the study was to 
clear out East’s table, removing the drawers and 
ornaments and tablecloth ; for he lived in the bottom 
passage, and his table was in requisition for the sing- 
ing. 

Supper came in due course at seven o’clock, con- 
sisting of bread and cheese and beer, which was all 
saved for the singing ; and directly afterwards the 
fags went to work to prepare the hall. The School- 
house hall, as has been said, is a great long high 
room, with two large fires on one side, and two large 
iron-bound tables, one running down the middle, 
and the other along the wall opposite the fire-places. 
Around the upper fire the fags placed the tables in 
the form of a horse-shoe, and upon them the jugs 
8 


114 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


with the Saturday night’s allowance of beer. Then 
the big boys used to drop in and take their seats, 
bringing with them bottled beer and song-books ; for 
although they all knew the songs by heart, it was the 
thing to have an old manuscript book descended 
from some departed hero, in which they were all 
carefully written out. 

The sixth-form boys had not yet appeared ; so, to 
fill up the gap, an interesting and time-honoured cere- 
mony was gone through. Each new boy was placed 
on the table in turn, and made to sing a solo, under 
the penalty of drinking a large mug of salt and water 
if he resisted or broke down. However, the new 
boys all sing like nightingales to-night, and the salt 
water is not in requisition ; Tom, as his part, per- 
forming the old west-country song of “The Leather 
Bottel” with considerable applause. And at the 
half-hour down come the sixth and fifth form boys, 
and take their places at the tables, which are filled 
up by the next biggest boys, the rest, for whom there 
is no room at the table, standing round outside. 

The glasses and mugs are filled, and then the 
fugleman strikes up the old sea song — 

“ A wet sheet and a flowing sea. 

And a wind that follows fast,” &c. 

which is the invariable first song in the School-house, 
and all the seventy voices join in, not mindful of 
harmony, but bent on noise, which they attain de- 
cidedly; but the general effect isn’t bad. And then 
follow the “British Grenadiers,” “Billy Taylor,” 
“The Siege of Seringapatam,” “Three Jolly Post- 
boys,” and other vociferous songs in rapid succes- 
sion, including the “Chesapeake and Shannon,” a 


BROOKE'S HONOURS. 


I15 

song lately introduced in honour of old Brooke; 
and when they come to the words — 

“ Brave Broke he waved his sword, crying, Now my lads, aboard. 

And we'll stop their playing Yankee-doodle-dandy oh ! ” 

you expect the roof to come down. The sixth and- 
fifth know that brave Broke ” of the Shannon was 
no sort of relation to our old Brooke. The fourth- 
form are uncertain in their belief, but for the most part 
hold that old Brooke was a midshipman then on 
board his uncle’s ship. And the lower school never 
doubt for a moment that it was our old Brooke who 
led the boarders, in what capacity they care not a 
straw. During the pauses the bottled-beer corks fly 
rapidly, and the talk is fast and merry, and the big 
boys, at least all of them who have a fel-low-feeling 
for dry throats, hand their mugs over their shoulders 
to be emptied by the small ones who stand round 
behind. 

Then Warner, the head of the* house, gets up and 
wants to speak, but he can’t, for every boy knows 
what’s coming; and the big boys who sit at the 
tables pound them and cheer ; and the small boys 
who stand behind pound one another, and cheer, 
and rush about the hall cheering. Then silence 
being made, Warner reminds them of the old School- 
house custom of drinking the healths, on the first 
night of singing, of those who are going to leave at 
the end of the half. “ He sees that they know 
what he is going to say already — (loud cheers) — and 
so won’t keep them, but only ask them to treat the 
toast as it deserves. It is the head of the eleven, 
the head of big-side football, their leader on this 
glorious day — Pater Brooke ! ” 

And away goes the pounding and cheering again, 


Il6 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 

becoming deafening when old Brooke gets on his 
legs : till, a table having broken down, and a gallon 
or so of beer been upset, and all throats getting dry, 
silence ensues, and the hero speaks, leaning his 
hands on the table, and bending a little forwards. 
No action, no tricks of oratory ; plain, strong, and 
straight, like his play. 

“ Gentlemen of the School-house ! I am very 
proud of the way in which you have received my 
name, and I wish I could say all I should like in 
return. But I know I shan’t. However, I’ll do the 
best I can to say what seems to me ought to be said 
by a fellow who’s just going to leave, and who has 
spent a good slice of his life here. Eight years it is, 
and eight such years as I can never hope to have 
again. Sq now I hope you’ll all listen to me — (loud 
cheers of ‘that we will’) — for I’m going to talk 
seriously. You’re bound to listen to me ; for what’s 
the use of calling me ‘ pater,’ and all that, if you 
don’t mind what I say? And I’m going to talk 
seriously, because I feel so. It’s a jolly time, too, 
getting to the end of the half, and a goal kicked by 
us first day — (tremendous applause) — after one of 
the hardest and fiercest day’s play I can remember 
in eight years — (frantic shoutings). The school 
played splendidly, too, I will say, and kept it up to 
the last. That last charge of theirs would have 
carried away a house. I never thought to see any- 
thing again of old Crab there, except little pieces, 
when I saw him tumbled over by it — (laughter and 
shouting, and great slapping on the back of Jones 
by the boys nearest him). Well, but we beat ’em — 
(cheers). Aye, but why did we beat ’em ? answer me 
that — (shouts of ‘ your play.’) Nonsense ! ’Twasn’t 
the wind and kick-off either — that wouldn’t do it. 


ON UNION, AND A GAINS?' BULL VING. 1 1 7 

’Twasn’t because we’ve half-a-dozen of the best 
players in the school, as we have. I wouldn’t change 
Warner, and Hedge, and Crab, and the young un, 
for any six on their side — (violent cheers). But 
half-a-dozen fellows can’t keep it up for two hours 
against two hundred. Why is it, then? I’ll telL 
you what I think. It’s because we’ve more reliance 
on one another, more of a house feeling, more fel- 
lowship than the school can have. Each of us 
knows and can depend on his next hand man better 
— that’s why we beat ’em to-day. We’ve union, 
they’ve division — there’s the secret — (cheers). But 
how’s this to be kept up? How’s it to be improved? 
That’s the question. For I take it, we’re all in 
earnest about beating the school, whatever else we 
care about. I know I’d sooner win two School- 
house matches running than get the Balliol scholar- 
ship any day — (frantic cheers). 

“ Now, I’m as proud of the house as any one. I 
believe it’s the best house in the school, out-and-out — - 
(cheers). But it’s a long way from what I want to 
see it. First there’s a deal of bullying going on. I 
know it well. I don’t pry about and interfere; that 
only makes it more underhand, and encourages the 
small boys to come to us with their fingers in their 
eyes telling tales, and so we should be worse off than 
ever. It’s very little kindness for the sixth to meddle 
generally — you youngsters, mind that. You’ll be 
all the better football players for learning to stand it, 
and to take your own parts, and fight it through. 
But depend on it, there’s nothing breaks up a house 
like bullying. Bullies are cowards, and one coward 
makes many; so good-bye to the School-house 
match if bullying gets ahead here. (Loud applause 
from the small boys, who look meaningly at Flash- 


Il8 TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 

man and other boys at the tables.) Then there’s 
fuddling about in the public-houses, and drinking 
bad spirits, and punch, and such rot-gut stuff. That 
won’t make good drop-kicks or chargers of you, 
take my word for it. You get plenty of good beer 
here, and that’s enough for you ; and drinking 
isn’t fine or manly, whatever some of you may think 
of it. 

“One other thing I must have a word about. A 
lot of you think and say, for I’ve heard you, ‘ There’s 
this new Doctor hasn’t been here so long as some of 
us, and he’s changing all the old customs. Rugby, 
and the School-house especially, are going to the 
dogs. Stand up for the good old ways, and down 
with the Doctor ! ’ Now I’m as fond of old Rugby 
customs and ways as any of you, and I’ve been here 
longer than any of you, and I’ll give you a word of 
advice in time, for I shouldn’t like to see any of you 
getting sacked. ‘ Down with the Doctor ! ’ is easier 
said than done. You’ll find him pretty tight on his 
perch, I take it, and an awkwardish customer to 
handle in that line. Besides now, what customs has 
he put down ? There was the good old custom of 
taking the linch-pins out of the farmers’ and bag- 
men’s gigs at the fairs, and a cowardly blackguard 
custom it was. We all know what came of it ; and no 
wonder the Doctor objected to it. But, come now, 
any of you, name a custom that he has put down.” 

“The hounds,” calls out a fifth-form boy, clad in 
a green cutaway with brass buttons and cord trousers, 
tlie leader of the sporting interest, and reputed a 
great rider and keen hand generally. 

“Well, we had six or seven mangey harriers and 
beagles belonging to the house. I’ll allow, and had 
had them for years, and that the Doctor put them 


STAND ETH UP FOR ^^THE DOCTORP 119 

down. But what good ever came of them ? Only 
rows with all the keepers for ten miles round ; and 
big-side Hare and Hounds is better fun ten times 
over. What else?” 

No answer. 

“Well, I won’t go on. Think it over for your- 
selves : you’ll find, I believe, that he don’t meddle 
with anyone that’s worth keeping. - And mind now, 
I say again, look out for squalls, if you will go your 
own way, and that way ain’t the Doctor’s, for it’ll 
lead to grief. You all know that I’m not the fellow 
to back a master through thick and thin. If I saw 
him stopping football, or cricket, or bathing, or spar- 
ring, I’d be as ready as any fellow to stand up about 
it. But he don’t — he encourages them; didn’t you 
see him out to-day for half-an-hour watching us? 
(loud cheers for the Doctor;) and he’s a strong, true 
man, and a wise one too, and a public-school man 
too. (Cheers.) And so let’s stick to him, and talk 
no more rot, and drink his health as the head of the 
house. (Loud cheers.) And now I’ve done blow- 
ing up, and very glad I am to have done. But it’s a 
solemn thing to be thinking of leaving a place which 
one has lived in and loved for eight years ; and if one 
can say a word for the good of the old house at such 
a time, why, it should be said, whether bitter or sweet. 
If I hadn’t been proud of the house and you — aye, no 
one knows how proud — I shouldn’t be blowing you 
up. And now let’s get to singing. But before I sit 
down I must give you a toast to be drunk with'three- 
times-three and all the honours. It’s a toast which I 
hope every one of us, wherever he may go hereafter, 
will never fail to drink when he thinks of the brave 
bright days of his boyhood. It’s a toast which should 
bind us all together, and to those who’ve gone before, 


120 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


and who’ll come after us here. It is the dear old 
School-house — the best house of the best school in 
England ! ” 

My dear boys, old and young, you who have be- 
longed, or do belong, to other schools and other 
houses, don’t begin throwing my poor little book 
about the room, and abusing me and it, and vowing 
you’ll read no more when you get to this point. I 
allow you’ve provocation for it. But, come now — 
would you, any of you, give a fig for a fellow who 
didn’t believe in, and stand up for his own house and 
his own school? You know you wouldn’t. Then 
don’t object to my cracking up the old School-house, 
Rugby. Haven’t I a right to do it, when I’m taking 
all the trouble of writing this true history for all your 
benefits? If you ain’t satisfied, go and write the his- 
tory of your own houses in your own times, and say 
all you know for your own schools and houses, pro- 
vided it’s true, and I’ll read it without abusing you. 

The last few words hit the audience in their weak- 
est place ; they had been not altogether enthusiastic 
at several parts of old Brooke’s speech ; but “ the best 
house of the best school in England ” was too much 
for them all, and carried even the sporting and drink- 
ing interests off their legs into rapturous applause, 
and (it is to be hoped) resolutions to lead a new life 
and remember old Brooke’s words ; which, however, 
they didn’t altogether do, as will appear hereafter. 

But it required all old Brooke’s popularity to 
carry down parts of his speech ; especially that 
relating to the Doctor. For there are no such 
bigoted holders by established forms and customs, be 
they never so foolish or meaningless, as English 
school-boys — at least, as the school-boy of our gener- 
ation. We magnified into heroes every boy who 


THE DOCTOR^' AND HIS WORK. 


I2I 


had left, and looked upon him with awe and 
reverence, when he revisited the place a year or so 
afterwards, on his way to or from Oxford or Cam- 
bridge ; and happy was the boy who remembered 
him, and sure of an audience as he expounded what 
he used to do and say, though it were sad enough 
stuff to make angels, not to say head-masters, weep. 

We looked upon every trumpery little custom and 
habit which had obtained in the school as though it 
had been a law of the Medes and Persians, and 
regarded the infringement or variation of it as a sort 
of sacrilege. And the Doctor, than whom no man 
or boy had a stronger liking for old school customs 
which were good and sensible, had, as has already 
been hinted, come into most decided collision with 
several which were neither the one nor the other. 
And as old Brooke had said, when he came into 
collision with boys or customs, there was nothing for 
them but to give in or take themselves off; because 
what he said had to be done, and no mistake about 
it. And this was beginning to be pretty clearly 
understood ; the boys felt that there was a strong 
man over them, who would have things his own 
way; and hadn’t yet learned that he was a wise and 
loving man also. His personal character and influ- 
ence had not had time to make itself felt, except by 
a very few of the bigger boys, with whom he came 
more directly in contact ; and he was looked upon 
with great fear and dislike by the great majority even 
of his own house. For he had found school, and 
school-house, in a state of monstrous license and mis- 
rule, and was still employed in the necessary but 
unpopular work of setting up order with a strong 
hand. 

However, as has been said, old Brooke triumphed. 


122 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


and the boys cheered him and then the Doctor. 
And then more songs came, and the healths of the 
other boys about to leave, who each made a speech, 
one flowery, another maudlin, a third prosy, and so 
on, which are not necessary to be here recorded. 

Half-past nine struck in the middle of the per- 
formance of ‘^Auld Lang Syne,” a most obstreperous 
proceeding; during which there was an immense 
amount of standing with one foot on the table, 
knocking mugs together and shaking hands, without 
which accompaniments it seems impossible for the 
youth of Britain to take part in that famous old 
song. The under-porter of the School-house entered 
during the performance, bearing five or six long 
wooden candlesticks, with lighted dips in them, 
which he proceeded to stick into their holes in such 
part of the great tables as he could get at ; and then 
stood outside the ring till the end of the song, when 
he was hailed with shouts. 

“ Bill, you old muff, the half-hour hasn’t struck.” 

Here, Bill, drink some cocktail,” “ Sing us a song 
old boy,” “Don’t you wish you may get the 
table?” Bill drank the j roflered cocktail not un- 
willingly, and putting down the empty glass, remon- 
strated, “ Now, gentlemen, there’s only ten minutes 
to prayers, and we must get the hall straight.” 

Shouts of “ No, no ! ” and a violent effort to strike 
up “ Billy Taylor” for the third time. Bill looked 
appealingly to old Brooke, who got up and stopped 
the noise. “ Now then, lend a hand, you young- 
sters, and get the tables back ; clear away the jugs 
and glasses. Bill’s right. Open the windows, 
Warner.” The boy addressed, who sat by the long 
ropes, proceeded to pull up the great windows, and 
let in a clear fresh rush of night air, which made the 


LAST LOYAL STRAINS. 


123 


candles flicker and gutter, and the fires roar. The 
circle broke up, each collaring his own jug, glass, 
and song-book ; Bill pounced on the big table, and 
began to rattle it away to its place outside the 
buttery-door. The lower-passage boys carried off 
their small tables, aided by their friends, while above 
all, standing on the great hall- table, a knot of untir- 
ing sons of harmony made night doleful by a pro- 
longed performance of “ God save the King.” His 
Majesty King William IV. then reigned over us, a 
monarch deservedly popular amongst the boys 
addicted to melody, to whom he was chiefly known 
from the beginning of that excellent, if slightly vul- 
gar, song in which they much delighted — 

“ Come, neighbours all, both great and small. 

Perform your duties here, 

And loudly sing ‘ live Billy our king,' 

For bating the tax upon beer.” ' 

Others of the more learned in songs also celebrated 
his praises in a sort of ballad, which I take to have 
been written by some Irish loyalist. I have forgot- 
ten all but the chorus, which ran — 

” God save our good King William, be his name for ever blessed ; 

He's the father of all his people, and the guardian of all the rest.” 

In troth, we were loyal subjects in those days, in a 
rough way. I trust that our successors make as 
much of her present Majesty, and, having regard to 
the greater refinement of the times, hav.e adopted or 
written other songs equally hearty, but more civil- 
ized, in her honour. 

Then the quarter to ten struck, and the prayer-bell 
rang. The sixth and fifth form boys ranged them- 
selves in their school order along the wall, on either 
side of the great fires, the middle fifth and upper- 
school boys round the long table in the middle of 


124 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


the hall, and the lower-school boys round the upper 
part of the second long table, which ran down the 
side of the hall furthest from the fires. Here Tom 
found himself at the bottom of all, in a state of mind 
and body not at all fit for prayers, as he thought ; 
and so tried hard to make himself serious, but couldn’t, 
for the life of him, do anything but repeat in his 
head the choruses of some of the songs, and stare at 
all the boys opposite, wondering at the brilliancy of 
their waistcoats, and speculating what sort of fellows 
they were. The steps of the head-porter are heard on 
the stairs, and alight gleams at the door. “ Hush ! ” 
from the fifth-form boys who stand there, and then 
in strides the Doctor, capon head, book in one hand, 
and gathering up his gown in the other. He walks 
up the middle, and takes his post by Warner, who 
begins calling over the names. The Doctor takes no 
notice of anything, but quietly turns over his book 
and finds the place, and then stands, cap in hand and 
finger in book, looking straight before his nose. He 
knows better than any one when to look, and when 
to see nothing ; to-night is singing night, and there’s 
been lots of noise and no harm done ; nothing but 
beer drunk, and nobody the worse for it ; though 
some of them do look hot and excited. So the Doc- 
tor sees nothing, but fascinates Tom in a horrible 
manner as he stands there, and reads out the Psalm 
in that deep, ringing, searching voice of his. Prayers 
are over, and Tom still stares open-mouthed after 
the Doctor’s retiring figure, when he feels a pull at 
his sleeve, and turning round, sees East. 

I say, were you ever tossed in a blanket ? ” 

No,” said Tom ; “why?” 

“ ’Cause there’ll be tossing to-night, most likely, 
before the sixth come up to bed. So if you funk. 


TOSSING. 


125 

you just come along and hide, or else they’ll catch 
you and toss you.” 

“Were you ever tossed? Does it hurt?” in- 
quired Tom. 

“ Oh yes, bless you, a dozen times,” said East, as 
he hobbled along by Tom’s side up-stairs. “ It don’t 
hurt unless you fall on the floor. But most fellows 
don’t like it.” 

They stopped at the fireplace in the top passage, 
where were a crowd of small boys whispering to- 
gether, and evidently unwilling to go up into the bed- 
rooms. In a minute, however, a study door opened, 
and a sixth-form boy came out, and off they all scut- 
tled up the stairs, and then noiselessly dispersed to 
their different rooms. Tom’s heart beat rather quick 
as he and East reached their room, but he had made 
up his mind. “ I shan’t hide. East,” said he. 

“ Very well, old fellow,” replied East, evidently 
pleased; “no more shall I — they’ll be here for us 
directly.” 

The room was a great big one, with a dozen beds 
in it, but not a boy that Tom could see, except East 
and himself. East pulled off his coat and waistcoat, 
amd then sat on the bottom of his bed, whistling, 
and pulling off his boots ; Tom followed his ex- 
ample. 

A noise and steps are heard in the passage, the 
door opens, and in rush four or five great fifth-form 
boys, headed by Flashman in his glory. 

Tom and East slept in the further corner of the 
room, and were not seen at first. 

“ Gone to ground, eh ? ” roared Flashman ; “ push 
’em out then, boys ! look under the beds: ” and he 
pulled up the little white curtain of the one nearest 
him. “ Who-o-op,” he roared, pulling away at the 


126 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


leg of a small boy, who held on tight to the leg of 
the bed, and sung out lustily for mercy. 

‘‘ Here, lend a hand, one of you, and help me pull 
out this young howling brute. Hold your tongue, 
sir, or I’ll kill you.” 

Oh, please, Flash man, please. Walker, don’t 
toss me ! I’ll' fag for you, I’ll do anything, only don’t 
toss me.” 

“You be hanged,” said Flashman, lugging the 

wretched boy along, “ ’twont hurt you, you ! 

Come along, boys, here he is.” 

“ I say. Flashy,” sung out another of the big boys, 
“ drop that ; you heard what old Pater Brooke said 
to-night. I’ll be hanged if we’ll toss any one against 
their will — no more bullying. Let him go, I say.” 

Flashman, with an oath and a kick, released his 
prey, who rushed headlong under his bed again, for 
fear they should change their minds, and crept along 
underneath the other beds, till he got under that of 
the sixth-form boy, which he knew they daren’t dis- 
turb. 

“ There’s plenty of youngsters don’t care about it,” 
said Walker. “ Here, here’s Scud East — you’ll be 
tossed, won’t you, young un?” Scud was East’s 
nickname, or Black, as we called it, gained by his 
fleetness of foot. 

“Yes,” said East, “if you like, only mind my 
foot.” 

“And here’s another who didn’t hide. Hullo! 
new boy; what’s your name, sir?” 

“ Brown.” 

“ Well, Whitey Brown, you don’t mind being 
tossed ? ” 

“ No,” said Tom, setting his teeth. 

“ Come along then, boys,” sung out Walker; and 


EAST AND TOM DE VO TE THEMSEL VES. 1 2 7 

away they all went, carrying along Tom and East, to 
the intense relief of four or five other small boys, 
who crept out from under the beds and behind 
them. 

“ What a trump Scud is ! ” said one. “ They won’t 
come back here now.” 

“And that new boy, too; he must be a good 
plucked one.” 

“ Ah ! wait till he has been tossed on to the floor; 
see how he’ll like it then ! ” 

Meantime the procession went down the passage 
to Number 7, the largest room, and the scene of 
tossing, in the middle of which was a great open 
space. Here they joined other parties of the bigger 
boys, each with a captive or two, some willing to be 
tossed, some sullen, and some frightened to death. 
At Walker’s suggestion, all who were afraid were let 
off, in honour of Pater Brooke’s speech. 

Then a dozen big boys seized hold of a blanket 
dragged from one of the beds. “In with Scud, 
quick! there’s no time to lose.” East was chucked 
into the blanket. “ Once, twice, thrice, and away ; ” 
up he went like a shuttlecock, but not quite up to 
the ceiling. 

“Now, boys, with a will,” cried Walker, “once, 
twice, thrice, and away 1 ” This time he went clean 
up, and kept himself from touching the ceiling with 
his hand ; and so again a third time, when he was 
turned out, and up went another boy. And then 
came Tom’s turn. He lay quite still,' by East’s 
advice, and didn’t dislike the “ once, twice, thrice ; ’* 
but the “away ” wasn’t so pleasant. They were in 
good wind now, and sent him slap up to the ceiling first 
time, against which his knees came rather sharply. 
But the moment’s pause before descending was the 


128 tom BROIVN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 

rub, the feeling of utter helplessness, and of leaving 
his whole inside behind him sticking to the ceiling. 
Tom was very near shouting to be set down, when 
he found himself back in the blanket, but thought 
of East, and didn’t; and so took his three tosses 
without a kick or a cry, and was called a young 
trump for his pains. 

He and East, having earned it, stood now looking 
on. No catastrophe happened, as all the captives 
were cool hands, and didn’t struggle. This didn’t 
suit Flashman. What your real bully likes in toss- 
ing, is when the boys kick and struggle, or hold on 
to one side of the blanket, and so get pitched bodily 
on to the floor; it’s no fun to him when no one 
is hurt or frightened. 

“Let’s toss two of them together. Walker,” sug- 
gested he. 

“ What a cursed bully you are, Flashy ! ” rejoined 
the other. “Up with another one.” 

And so no two boys were tossed together, the 
peculiar hardship of which is, that it’s too much for 
human nature to lie still then and share troubles ; 
and so the wretched pair of small boys struggle in 
the air which shall fall a-top in the descent, to the 
no small risk of both falling out of the blanket, and 
the huge delight of brutes like Flashman. 

But now there’s a cry that the praepostor of the 
room is coming ; so the tossing stops, and all scatter 
to their different rooms: and Tom is left to turn in, 
with the first day’s experience of a public school to 
meditate upon. 


WAKING. 


129 


CHAPTER VII. 

SETTLING TO THE COLLAR. 

E verybody, I suppose, knows the dreamy 
delicious state in which one lies, half asleep, 
half awake, while consciousness begins to 
return, after a sound night’s rest in a new place 
which we are glad to be in, following upon a day 
of unwonted excitement and exertion. There are 
few pleasanter pieces of life. The worst of it is 
that they last such a short time ; for, nurse them as 
you will, by lying perfectly passive in mind and 
body, you can’t make more than five minutes or so 
of them. After which time, the stupid, obtrusive, 
wakeful entity which we call ‘I,’ as impatient as he 
is stiff-necked, spite of our teeth will force himself 
back again, and take possession of us down to our 
very toes. 

It was in this state that Master Tom lay at half- 
past seven on the morning following the day of his 
arrival, and from his clean little white bed watched 
the movements of Bogle (the generic name by which 
the successive shoeblacks of the School-house were 
known), as he marched round from bed to bed, 
collecting the dirty shoes and boots, and depositing 
clean ones in their places. 

There he lay, half doubtful as to where exactly in 
the universe he was, but conscious that he had made 
a step in life which he had been anxious to make. 
It was only just light as he looked lazily out of the 
wide windows, and saw the tops of the great elms, 
and the rooks circling about, and cawing remon- 
strances to the lazy ones of their commonwealth, 
9 


130 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


before starting in a body for the neighbouring 
ploughed fields. The noise of the room-door clos- 
ing behind Bogle, as he made his exit with the shoe- 
basket under his arm, roused Tom thoroughly, and 
he sat up in bed and looked round the room. What 
in the world could be the matter with his shoulders 
and- loins ? He felt as if he had been severely 
beaten all down his back, the natural result of his 
performance at his first match. He drew up his 
knees and rested his chin on them, and went over 
all the events of yesterday, rejoicing in his new life, 
what he had seen of it, and all that was to come. 

Presently one or two of the other boys roused 
themselves, and began to sit up and talk to one 
another in low tones. Then East, after a roll or 
two, came to an anchor also, and, nodding to Tom, 
began examining his ankle. 

“ What a pull,” said he, that it’s lie-in-bed, for 
I shall be as lame as a tree, I think.” 

It was Sunday morning, and Sunday lectures had 
not yet been established ; so that nothing but break- 
fast intervened* between bed and eleven o’clock 
chapel — a gap by no means easy to fill up : in fact, 
though received with the correct amount of grum- 
bling, tlie first lecture instituted by the Doctor 
shortly afterwards was a great boon to the School. It 
was lie in bed, and no one was in a hurry to get up, 
especially in rooms where the sixth-form boy was a 
good-tempered fellow, as was the case in Tom’s 
room, and allowed the small boys to talk and laugh, 
and do pretty much what they pleased, so long as 
they didn’t disturb him. His bed was a bigger one 
than the rest, standing in the corner by the fire- 
place, with a washing-stand and large basin by the 
side, where he lay in state, with his white curtains 


LIE-IN-BED MORNING. 


tucked in so as to form a retiring place : an awful 
subject of contemplation to Tom, who slept nearly- 
opposite, and watched the great man rouse himself 
and take a book from under his pillow, and begin 
reading, leaning his head on his hand, and turning 
his back to the room. Soon, however, a noise of 
striving urchins arose, and muttered encouragements 
from the neighbouring boys, of — “Go it. Tadpole !” 
“ Now, young Green ! ” “ Haul away his blanket !” 

“Slipper him on the hands! ” Young Green and 
little Hall, commonly called Tadpole, from his great 
black head and thin legs, slept side by side far 
away by the door, and were forever playing one 
another tricks, which usually ended, as on this morn- 
ing, in open and violent collision : and now, un- 
mindful of all order and authority, there they were, 
each hauling away at the other’s bed-clothes with 
one hand, and with the other, armed with a slipper, 
belabouring whatever portion of the body of his 
adversary came within reach. 

“Hold that noise, up in the corner,” called out 
the praepostor, sitting up and looking round his cur- 
tains ; and the Tadpole and young Green sank down 
into their disordered beds, and then, looking at his 
watch, added “ Hullo, past eight ! — whose turn for 
hot water?” 

(Where the praepostor was particular in his ablu- 
tions, the fags in his room had to descend in turn to 
the kitchen, and beg or steal hot water for him ; and 
often the custom extended further, and two boys went 
down every morning to get a supply for the whole 
room.) 

“East’s and Tadpole’s,” answered the senior fag, 
who kept the rota. 


132 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


Well, be quick, some of you, that’s all,” said the 
great man, as he turned out of bed, and putting on 
his slippers, went out into the great passage which 
runs the whole length of the bedrooms, to get his 
Sunday habiliments out of his portmanteau. 

“ Let me go for you,” said Tom to East, ‘‘ I should 
like it.” 

“Well, thank’ee, that’s a good fellow. Just pull 
on your trousers, and take your jug and mine. Tad- 
pole will show you the way.” 

And so Tom and the Tadpole, in night-shirts and 
trousers, started off down-stairs, and through “ Thos’s 
hole,” as the little buttery, where candles and beer 
and bread and cheese were served out at night, was 
called ; across the School-house court, down a long 
passage, and into the kitchen ; where, after some par- 
ley with the stalwart, handsome cook, who declared 
that she had filled a dozen jugs already, they got their 
hot water, and returned with all speed and great cau- 
tion. As it was, they narrowly escaped capture by 
some privateers from the fifth-form rooms, who were 
on the look-out for the hot-water convoys, and pur- 
sued them up to the very door of their room, making 
them spill half their load in the passage. “Better 
than going down again though,” Tadpole remarked, 
“as we should have had to do, if those beggars had 
caught us.” 

By the time that the calling-over bell rang, Tom 
and his new comrades were all down, dressed in their 
best clothes, and he had the satisfaction of answering 
“here” to his name for the first time, the prsepostor 
of the week having put it in at the bottom of his list. 
And then came breakfast, and a saunter about the 
close and town with East, whose lameness only 
became severe when any fagging had to be done. 


MORNING CHAPEL. 


133 

And so they whiled away the time until morning 
chapel. 

It was a fine Ncwember morning, and the close soon 
became alive witn boys of all ages, who sauntered 
about on the grass, or walked round the gravel walk, 
in parties of two or three. East, still doing the cic- 
erone, pointed out all the remarkable characters to 
Tom as they passed : Osbert, who could throw a 
cricket-ball from the little-side ground over the rook 
trees to the Doctor’s wall ; Gray, who had got the 
Balliol scholarship, and, what East evidently thought 
of much more importance, a half-holiday for the 
School by his success ; Thorne, who had run ten miles 
in two minutes over the hour ; Black, who had held 
his own against the cock of the town in the last row 
with the louts ; and many more heroes, who then and 
there walked about and were worshipped, all trace of 
whom has long since vanished from the scene of their 
fame ; and the fourth-form boy who reads their names 
rudely cut out on the old hall tables, or painted upon 
the big side-cupboard (if hall tables, and big side- 
cupboards still exist), wonders what manner of boys 
they were. It will be the same with you who won- 
der, my sons, whatever your prowess may be, in 
cricket, or scholarship, or football. Two or three 
years, more or less, and then the steadily advancing, 
blessed wave will pass over your names as it has passed 
over ours. Nevertheless, play your games and do 
your work manfully — see only that that be done, and 
let the remembrance of it take care of itself. 

The chapel-bell began to ring at a quarter to eleven, 
and Tom got in early and took his place in the low- 
est row, and watched all the other boys come in and 
take their places, filling row after row ; and tried to 
construe the Greek text which was inscribed over the 


134 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


door with the slightest possible success, and wondered 
which of the masters, who walked down the chapel 
and took their seats in the exalted^boxes at the end, 
would be his lord. And then came the closing of the 
doors, and the Doctor in his robes and the service, 
which, however, didn’t impress him much, for his 
feeling of wonder and curiosity was too strong. And 
the boy on one side of him was scratching his name 
on the oak panelling in front, and he couldn’t help 
watching to see what the name was, and whether it was 
well scratched ; and the boy on the other side went to 
sleep and kept falling against him; and on the whole, 
though many boys even in that part of the School 
were serious and attentive, the general atmosphere 
was by no means devotional ; and when he got out 
into the close again, he didn’t feel at all comfortable, 
or as if he had been to church. 

But at afternoon chapel it was quite another 
thing. He had spent the time after dinner writing 
home to his mother, and so was in better frame of 
mind ; and his first curiosity was over, and he 
could attend more to the service. As the hymn after 
the prayers was being sung, and the chapel was get- 
ting a little dark, he was beginning to feel that he had 
been really worshipping. And then came that great 
event in his, as in every Rugby boy’s life of that 
day — the first sermon from the Doctor. 

More worthy pens than mine have described that 
scene. The oak pulpit standing out by itself above 
the School seats. The tall gallant form, the kindling 
eye, the voice, now soft as the low notes of a flute, 
now clear and stirring as the call of the light infan- 
try bugle, of him who stood there Sunday after Sun- 
day, witnessing and pleading for his Lord, the King 
of righteousness and love and glory, with whose 


THE SERMOH. 


135 


spirit he was filled, and in whose power he spoke. 
The long lines of young faces, rising tier above tier 
down the whole length of the chapel, from the little 
boy’s who had just left his mother to the young man’s 
who was going out next week into the great world 
rejoicing in his strength. It was a great and solemn 
sight, and never more so than at this time of year, 
when the only lights in the chapel were in the pulpit 
and at the seats of the praepostors of the week, and 
the soft twilight stole over the rest of the chapel, 
deepening into darkness in the high gallery behind 
the organ. 

But what was it after all which seized and held 
these three hundred boys, dragging them out of 
themselves, willing or unwilling, for twenty minutes, 
on Sunday afternoon ? True, there always were boys 
scattered up and down the School, who in heart and 
head were worthy to hear and able to carry away the 
deepest and wisest words there spoken. But these 
were a minority always, generally a very small one, 
often so small a one as to be countable on the fingers 
of your hand. What was it that moved and held us, 
the rest of the three hundred reckless, childish boys, 
who feared the Doctor with all our hearts, and very 
little besides in heaven or earth : who thought more 
of our sets in the School than of the Church of Christ, 
and put the traditions of Rugby and the public 
opinion of boys in our daily life above the laws of 
God? We couldn’t enter into half that we heard; 
we hadn’t the knowledge of our own hearts or the 
knowledge of one another ; and little enough of the 
faith, hope, and love needed to that end. But we 
listened, as all boys in their better moods will listen 
(aye, and men too, for the matter of that), to a man 
who we felt to be, with all his heart and soul and 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


136 

Strength, striving against whatever was mean and un- 
manly and unrighteous in our little world. It was not 
the cold clear voice of one giving advice and warning 
from serene heights to those who were struggling and 
sinning below, but the warm living voice of one who 
was fighting for us and by our sides, and calling on 
us to help him and ourselves and one another. And 
so, wearily and little by little, but surely and steadily 
on the whole, was brought home to the young boy, 
for the first time, the meaning of his life: that it 
was no fool’s or sluggard’s paradise into which he 
had wandered by chance, but a battle-field ordained 
from of old, where there are no spectators, but the 
youngest must take his side, and the stakes are life 
and death. And he who roused his consciousness in 
them showed them at the same time, by every word 
he spoke in the pulpit, and by his whole daily life, 
how that battle was to be fought ; and stood there 
before them their fellow-soldier and the captain of 
their band. The true sort of captain, too, for a 
boy’s army, one who had no misgivings and gave no 
uncertain word of command, and, let who would 
yield or make a truce, would fight the fight out (so 
every boy felt) to the last gasp and the last drop of 
blood. Other sides of his character might take hold 
of and influence boys here and there, but it was this 
thoroughness and undaunted courage which more 
than anything else won his way to the hearts of the 
great mass of those on whom he left his mark, and 
made them believe first in him, and then in his 
Master. 

It was this quality above all others which moved 
such boys as our hero, who had nothing whatever 
remarkable about him except excess of boyishness ; 
by which I mean animal life in its fullest measure. 


TOM BEGINS HIS LESSONS. 


137 


good nature and honest impulses, hatred of injustice 
and meanness, and thoughtlessness enough to sink a 
three-decker. And so, during the next two years, 
in which it was more than doubtful whether he would 
get good or evil from the School, and before any 
steady purpose or principle grew up in him, whatever 
his week’s sins and shortcomings might have been, 
he hardly ever left the chapel on Sunday evenings 
without a serious resolve to stand by and follow the 
Doctor, and a feeling that it was only cowardice (the 
incarnation of all other sins in such a boy’s mind) 
which hindered him from doing so with all his heart. 

The next day Tom was duly placed in the third 
form, and began his lessons in a corner of the big 
School. He found the work very easy, as he had 
been well grounded, and knew his grammar by heart ; 
and, as he had no intimate companion to make him 
idle (East and his other School-house friends being in 
the lower fourth, the form above him), soon gained 
golden opinions from his master, who said he was 
placed too low, and should be put out at the end of 
the half-year. So all went well with him in School, 
and he wrote the most flourishing letters home to 
his mother, full of his success and the unspeakable 
delights of a public school. 

In the house, too, all went well. The end of the 
half-year was drawing near, which kept everybody in 
a good humour, and the house was ruled well and 
strongly by Warner and Brooke. True, the general 
system was rough and hard, and there was bullying 
in nooks and corners, bad signs for the future ; but 
it never got further, or dared show itself openly, 
stalking about the passages and hall and bedrooms, 
and making the life of the small boys a continual fear. 

Tom, as a new boy, was of right excused fagging 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


^38 

for the first month, but in his enthusiasm for his new 
life this privilege hardly pleased him ; and East and 
others of his young friends discovering this, kindly 
allowed him to indulge his fancy, and take their 
turns at night fagging and cleaning studies. These 
were the ‘principal duties of the fags in the house. 
Erom supper until nine o’clock, three fags taken in 
order stood in the passages, and answered any prae- 
postor who called Fag, racing to the door, the last 
comer having to do the work. This consisted gen- 
erally of going to the buttery for beer and bread and 
cheese (for the great men did not sup with the rest, 
but had each his own allowance in his study or the 
fifth-form room), cleaning candlesticks and putting 
in new candles, toasting cheese, bottling beer, and 
carrying messages about the house ; and Tom, in the 
first blush of his hero-worship, felt it a high privilege 
to receive orders from, and be the bearer of, the sup- 
per of old Brooke. And besides this night-work, 
•each praepostor had three or four fags specially al- 
lotted to him, of whom he was supposed to be the 
guide, philosopher, and friend, and who in return 
for these good offices had to clean out his study every 
morning by turns, directly after first lesson and 
before he returned from breakfast. And the pleasure 
of seeing the great men’s studies, and looking at 
their pictures, and peeping into their books, made 
Tom a ready substitute for any boy who was too lazy 
to do his own work. And so he soon gained the 
character of a good-natured willing fellow, who was 
ready to do a turn for any one. 

In all the games too he joined with all his heart 
and soon became well versed in all the mysteries of 
football, by continued practice at the School- 
house little-side, which played daily. 


HARE AND HOUNDS. 


139 


The only incident worth recording here, however, 
was his first run at Hare-and-hounds. On the last 
Tuesday but one of the half-year he was passing 
through the Hall after dinner, when he was hailed 
with shouts from Tadpole and several other fags seat- 
ed at one of the long tables, the chorus of which was 

Come and help us tear up scent.” 

Tom approached tlie table in obedience to the 
mysterious summons, always ready to help, and found 
the party engaged in tearing up old newspapers, copy- 
books, and magazines, into small pieces, with which 
they were filling four large canvas bags. 

“ It’s the turn of our house to find scent for big- 
side Hare-and-hounds,” exclaimed Tadpole; “tear 
away, there’s no time to lose before calling-over.” 

“I think it’s a great shame,” said another small 
boy, “ to have such a hard run for the last day.” 

“ Which run is it ? ” said Tadpole. 

“ Oh, the Barby run, I hear,” answered the other; 
“ nine miles at least, and hard ground ; no chance ot 
getting in at the finish, unless you’re a first-rate 
scud.” 

“ Well, I’m going to have a try,” said Tadpole ; 
“ it’s the last run of the half, and if a fellow gets in 
at the end, big-side stands ale and bread and cheese, 
and a bowl of punch ; and the Cock’s such a famous 
place for ale.” 

“ I should like to try too,” said Tom. 

“Well then, leave your waistcoat behind, and lis- 
ten at the door, after calling-over, and you’ll hear 
where the meet is.” 

After calling-over, sure enough, there were two 
boys at the door, calling out, “ Big-side Hare-and- 
hounds meet at White Hall ;” and Tom, having 
girded, himself with leather strap, and left all super- 


140 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL BAYS. 


fluous clothing behind, set off for White Hall, an old 
gable-ended house some quarter of a mile from town, 
with East, whom he had persuaded to join, notwith- 
standing his prophecy that they could never get in, 
as it was the hardest run of the year. 

At the meet they found some forty or fifty boys, 
and Tom felt sure, from having seen many of them 
run at football, that he and East were more likely to 
get in than they. 

After a few minutes’ waiting, two well-known run- 
ners, chosen for the hares, buckled on the four bags 
filled with scent, compared their watches with those 
of young Brooke and Thorne, and started off at a 
long slinging trot across the fields in the direction of 
Barby. 

Then the hounds clustered round Thorne, who 
explained shortly, ‘‘They’re to have six minutes’ 
law. We run into the Cock, and every one who 
comes in within a quarter of an hour of the hares’ll 
be counted, if he has been round Barby church.” 
Then came a minute’s pause or so, and then the 
watches are pocketed, and the pack is led through 
the gateway into the field which the hares had first 
crossed. Here they break into a trot, scattering 
over the field to find the first traces of the scent 
which the hares throw out as they go along. The 
old hounds make straight for the likely points, and 
in a minute a cry of “ forward ” comes from one of 
them, and the whole pack quickening their pace 
make for the spot, while the boy who hit the scent 
first and the two or three nearest to him are over the 
first fence, and making play along the hedgerow in 
the long grass-field beyond. The rest of the pack 
rush at the gap already made, and scramble through, 
jostling one another. “Forward” again, before 


THE FIRST BURST, 


141 

they are half through ; the pace quickens into a 
sharp run, the tail hounds all straining to get up 
with the lucky leaders. They are gallant hares, and 
the scent lies thick right across another meadow and 
into a ploughed field, where the pace begins to tell ; 
and then over a good wattle with a ditch on the 
other side, and down a large pasture studded with 
old thorns, which slopes down to the first brook ; 
the great Leicestershire sheep charge away across the 
field as the pack comes racing down the slope. The 
brook is a small one, and the scent lies right ahead 
up the opposite slope, and as thick as ever ; not a 
turn or a check to favour the tail hounds, who strain 
on, now trailing in a long line, many a youngster 
beginning to drag his legs heavily, and feel his heart 
beat like a hammer, and the bad plucked ones think- 
ing that after all it isn’t worth while to keep it up. 

Tom, East, and the Tadpole had a good start, and 
are well up for such young hands, and after rising 
the slope and crossing the next field, find themselves 
up with the leading hounds, who have over-run the 
scent and are trying back ; they have come a mile 
and a half in about eleven minutes, a pace which 
shows that it is the last day. About twenty-five of 
the original starters only show here, the rest having 
already given in ; the leaders are busy making casts 
into the fields on the left and right, and the others 
get their second winds. 

Then comes the cry of ‘^forward” again, from 
young Brooke, from the extreme left, and the pack 
settles down to work again steadily and doggedly, 
the whole keeping pretty well together. The scent, 
though still good, is not so thick ; there is no need 
of that, for in this part of the run every one knows 
the line which must be taken, and so there are no 


142 


TOM BI^OWJ^^S SCHOOL DAYS. 


casts to be made, but good downright running and 
fencing to be done. All who are now up mean 
coming in, and they come to the foot of Barby Hill 
without losing more than two or three more of the 
pack. This last straight two miles and a half is 
always a vantage ground for the hounds, and the 
hares know it well ; they are generally viewed on the 
side of Barby Hill, and all eyes are on the look-out 
for them to-day. But not a sign of them appears, 
so now will be the hard work for the hounds, and 
there is nothing for it but to cast about for the 
scent, for it is now the hares’ turn, and they may 
baffle the pack dreadfully in the next two miles. 

Ill fares it now with our youngsters that they are 
School-house boys, and so follow young Brooke, for he 
takes the wide casts round to the left, conscious of his 
own powers, mid loving the hard work. For if you 
would consider for a moment, you small boys, you 
would remember that the Cock, where the run ends, 
and the good ale will be going, lies far out to the right 
on the Dunchurch road, so that every cast you take 
to the left is so much extra work. And at this stage 
of the run, when the evening is closing in already, 
no one remarks whether you run a little cunning or 
not, so you should stick to those crafty hounds who 
keep edging away to the right, and not follow a 
prodigal like young Brooke, whose legs are twice as 
long as yours and of cast-iron, wholly indifferent to 
two or three miles more or less. However, they 
struggle after him, sobbing and plunging along, 
Tom and East pretty close, and Tadpole, whose big 
head begins to pull him down, some thirty yards 
behind. 

Now comes a brook, with stiff clay banks, from 
which they can hardly drag their legs, and they hear 


NO GO, 


I4S 

faint cries for help from the wretched Tadpole, who 
has fairly stuck fast. But they have too little run 
left in themselves to pull up for their own brothers. 
Three fields more, and another check, and then 
‘‘ forward ” called away to the extreme right. 

The two boys’ souls die within them ; they can 
never do it. Young Brooke thinks so too, and says 
kindly, “You’ll cross a lane after next field, keep 
down it, and you’ll hit the Dunchurch road below 
the Cock,” and then steams away for the run in, in 
which he’s sure to be first, as if he were just starting. 
They struggle on across the next field, the “for- 
wards ” getting fainter and fainter, and then ceasing. 
The whole hunt is out of ear-shot, and all hope of 
coming in is over. 

“ Hang it all ! ” broke out East, as soon as he had 
got wind enough, pulling off his hat and mopping at 
his face, all splattered with dirt and lined with sweat, 
from which went up a thick steam into the still cold 
air. “ I told you how it would be. What a thick 
I was to come ! Here we are dead beat, and yet 
I know we’re close to the run in, if we knew the 
country.” 

“Well,” said Tom mopping away, and gulping 
down his disappointment, “ it can’t be helped. We 
did our best anyhow. Hadn’t we better find this 
lane, and go down it, as young Brooke told us?” 

“ I suppose so — nothing else for it,” grunted East. 
“If ever I go out last day again,” growl — growl — 
growl. 

So they tried back slowly and sorrowfully, and 
found the lane, and went limping down it, plashing 
in the cold puddly ruts, and beginning to feel how 
the run had taken it out of them. The evening 
closed in fast, and clouded over, dark, cold, and dreary. 


144 


TOM BROIVN^S SCHOOL DAYS. 


“ I say, it must be locking-up, I should think,” 
remarked East, breaking the silence ; it’s so 
dark.” 

“ What if we’re late? ” said Tom. 

*‘No tea, and sent up to the Doctor,” answered 
East. 

The thought didn’t add to their cheerfulness. 
Presently a faint halloo was heard from an adjoining 
field. They answered it and stopped, hoping for 
some competent rustic to guide them, when over a 
gate some twenty yards ahead crawled the wretched 
Tadpole, in a state of collapse ; he had lost a shoe 
in the brook, and been groping after it up to his 
elbows in the stiff wet clay, and a more miserable 
creature in the shape of boy seldom has been seen. 

The sight of him, notwithstanding, cheered them, 
for he was some degrees more wretched than they. 
They also cheered him, as he was now no longer 
under the dread of passing his night alone in the 
fields. And so in better heart, the three plashed pain- 
fully down the never-ending lane. At last it widened, 
just as utter darkness set in, and they come out on to 
a turnpike-road, and there paused, bewildered, for 
they had lost all bearings, and knew not whether to 
turn to the right or left. 

Luckily for them they had not to decide, for 
lumbering along the road, with one lamp lighted, 
and two spavined horses in the shafts, came a heavy 
coach, which after a moment’s suspense they recog- 
nized as the Oxford coach, the redoubtable Pig and 
Whistle. 

It lumbered slowly up, and the boys mustering 
their last run, caught it as it passed, and began 
scrambling up behind, in which exploit East missed 
his footing and fell flat on his nose along the road. 


CONSE Q UENCES. 


145 


Then the others hailed the old scarecrow of a coach- 
man, who pulled up and agreed to take them in for 
a shilling ; so there they sat on the back seat, drub- 
bing with their heels, and their teeth chattering with 
cold, and jogged into Rugby some forty minutes 
after locking-up. 

Five minutes afterwards, three small limping shiv- 
ering figures steal along through the Doctor’s garden, 
and into the house by the servants’ entrance (all the 
other gates have been closed long since), where the 
first thing they light upon in the passage is old 
Thomas, ambling along, candle in one hand and 
keys in the other. 

He stops and examines their condition with a 
grim smile. *‘Ah ! East, Hall, and Brown, late for 
locking-up. Must go up to the Doctor’s study at 
once.” 

“ Well but, Thomas, mayn’t we go and wash first? 
You can put down the time, you know.” 

“ Doctor’s study d’recly you come in — that’s the 
orders,” replied old Thomas, motioning towards the 
stairs at the end of the passage which led up into 
the Doctor’s house; and the boys turned ruefully 
down it, not cheered by the old yerger’s muttered 
remark, ‘‘What a pickle they boys be in ! ” Thomas 
referred to their faces and habiliments, but they con- 
strued it as indicating the Doctor’s state of mind. 
Upon the short flight of stairs they paused to' hold 
counsel. 

“Who’ll go in first?” inquires Tadpole. 

“ You — you’re the senior,” answered East. 

“ Catch me — look at the state I’m in;” rejoined 
Hall, showing the arms of his jacket. “ I must get 
behind you two.” 

“Well, but look at me,” said East, indicating the 
10 


146 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 

mass of clay behind which he was standing ; Fm 
worse than you, two to one; you might grow 
cabbages on my trousers.” 

“That’s all down below, and you can keep your 
legs behind the sofa,” said Hall. 

“ Here, Brown, you’re the show-figure — vou must 
lead.” 

“ But my face is all muddy,” argued Tom. 

“ Oh, we’re all in one boat for that matter ; but 
come on, we’re only making it worse, dawdling 
here.” 

“ Well, just give us a brush then,” said Tom ; and 
they began trying to rub off the superfluous dirt from 
each other’s jackets, but it was not dry enough, and 
the rubbing made it worse; so in despair they pushed 
through the swing door at the head of the stairs, 
and found themselves in the Doctor’s hall. 

“That’s the library door,” said East in a whisper, 
pushing Tom forwards. The sound of merry voices 
and laughing came from within, and his first hesitat- 
ing knock was unanswered. But at the second, the 
Doctor’s voice said “Come in,” and Tom turned 
the handle, and he, with the others behind him, 
sidled into the room. 

The Doctor looked up from his task ; he was work- 
ing away with a great chisel at the bottom of a 
boy’s sailing boat, the lines of which he was no 
doubt fashioning on the model of one of Nicias’ 
galleys. Round him stood three or four children ; 
the candles burnt brightly on a large table at the 
further end covered with books and papers, and a 
great fire threw a ruddy glow over the rest of the 
room. All looked so kindly, and homely, and com- 
fortable, that the boys took heart in a moment, and 
Tom advanced from behind the shelter of the great 


THEIR RECEPTION. 


147 


sofa. The Doctor nodded to the children, who went 
out, casting curious and amused glances at the three 
young scarecrows. 

“ Well, my little fellows,” began the Doctor, draw- 
ing himself up with his back to the fire, the chisel in 
one hand and his coat-tails in the other, and his eyes 
twinkling as he looked them over; “what makes 
you so late ? ’ ’ 

“Please, sir, we’ve been out Big-side Hare-and- 
hounds, and lost our way.” 

“ Hah ! you couldn’t keep up, I suppose? ” 

“Well, sir,” said East, stepping out, and not lik- 
ing that the Doctor should think lightly of his 
running powers, “ we got round Barby all right, but 
then — ” 

“Why, what a state you’re in, my boy! ” inter- 
rupted the Doctor, as the pitiful condition of East’s 
garments was fully revealed to him. 

“That’s the fall I got, sir, in the road,” said 
East, looking down at himself; “the Old Pig came 
by-” 

“ The what ? ” said the Doctor. 

“The Oxford coach, sir,” explained Hall. 

“ Hah ! yes, the Regulator,” said the Doctor. 

“And I tumbled on m/ face trying to get up be- 
hind,” went on East. 

“You’re not hurt, I hope?” said the Doctor. 

“ Oh no, sir.” 

“Well now, run up-stairs, all three of you, and 
get clean things on, and then tell the housekeeper to 
give you some tea. You’re too young to try such 
long runs. Let Warner know I’ve seen you. Good 
night.” 

Good night, sir.” And away scuttled the three 
boys in high glee. 


148 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


What a brick, not to give us even twenty lines 
to learn !” said the Tadpole, as they reached their 
bedroom ; and in half-an-hour afterwards they were 
sitting by the fire in the housekeeper’s room at a 
sumptuous tea, with cold meat, “twice as good a 
grub as we should have got in the hall,” as the Tad- 
pole remarked with a grin, his mouth full of buttered 
toast. All their grievances were forgotten, and they 
were resolving to go out the first big-side next half, 
and thinking Hare-and-hounds the most delightful 
of games. 

A day or two afterwards the great passage outside 
the bedrooms was cleared of the boxes and portman- 
teaus, which went down to be packed by the matron, 
and great games of chariot-racing, and cock-fighting, 
and bolstering, went on in the vacant space, the sure 
sign of a closing half-year. 

Then came the making-up of parties for the jour- 
ney home, and Tom joined a party who were to hire 
a coach, and post with four horses to Oxford. 

Then the last Saturday, on which the Doctor came 
round to each form to give out the prizes, and hear 
the masters’ last reports of how they and their 
charges had been conducting themselves ; and Tom, 
to his huge delight, was praised, and got his remove 
into the lower-fourth, in which all his School-house 
friends were. 

On the next Tuesday morning, at four o’clock, hot 
coffee was going on in the housekeeper’s and ma- 
tron’s rooms ; boys wrapped in great coats and muf- 
flers were swallowing hasty mouthfuls, rushing about, 
tumbling over luggage, and asking questions all at 
once of the matron ; outside the School-gates were 
drawn up several chaises and the four-horse coach 
which Tom’s party had chartered, the post-boys in 


LAST DA VS. 


149 


their best jackets and breeches, and a cornopean 
player, hired for the occasion, blowing away “A 
southerly wind and a cloudy sky,” waking all peace- 
ful inhabitants half-way down the High Street. 

Every minute the bustle and hubbub increased, 
porters staggered about with boxes and bags, the cor- 
nopean played louder. Old Thomas sat in his den 
with a great yellow bag by his side, out of which he 
was paying journey money to each boy, comparing 
by the light of a solitary dip the dirty crabbed little 
list in his own handwriting with the Doctor’s list, and 
the amount of his cash ; his head was on one side, his 
mouth screwed up, and his spectacles dim from early 
toil. He had prudently locked the door, and car- 
ried on his operations solely through the window, or 
he would have been driven wild, and lost all his 
money. 

“Thomas, do be quick, we shall never catch the 
Highflyer at Dunchurch.” 

“That’s your money, all right. Green.” 

“Hullo, Thomas, the Doctor said I was to have 
two-pound-ten ; you’ve only given me two pound.” — 
I fear that Master Green is not confining himself 
strictly to truth. — Thomas turns his head more on one 
side than ever, and spells away at the dirty list. 
Green is forced away from the window. 

“ Here, Thomas, never mind him, mine’s thirty 
shillings.” “ And mine too,” “and mine,” shouted 
others. 

One way or another, the party to which Tom be- 
longed all got packed and paid, and sallied out to the 
gates, the cornopean playing frantically “ Drops of 
Brandy,” in allusion, probably, to the slight pota- 
tions in which the musician and post-boys had been 
already indulging. All luggage was carefully stowed 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


ISO 

away inside the coach and in the front and hind 
boots, so that not a hat-box was visible outside. 
Five or six small boys, with pea-shooters, and the 
cornopean player, got up behind ; in front the big 
boys, mostly smoking, not for pleasure, but because 
they are now gentlemen at large — and this is the 
most correct public method of notifying the fact. 

“ Robinson’s coach will be down the road in a 
minute, it has gone up to Bird’s to pick up, — we’ll 
wait till they’re close, and make a race of it,” says 
the leader. ‘‘ Now, boys, half-a-sovereign apiece if 
you beat ’em into Dunchurch by one hundred yards.” 

“All right, sir,” shouted the grinning post-boys. 

Down comes Robinson’s coach in a minute or two 
with a rival cornopean, and away go the two vehicles, 
horses galloping, boys cheering, horns playing loud. 
There is a special Providence over school-boys as 
well as sailors, or they must have upset twenty times 
in the first five miles ; sometimes actually abreast of 
one another, and the boys on the roofs exchanging 
volleys of peas, now nearly running over a post-chaise 
which had started before them, now half-way up a 
bank, now with a wheel-and-a-half over a yawning 
ditch ; and all this in a dark morning, with nothing 
but their own lamps to guide them. However, it’s 
all over at last, and they have run over nothing but 
an old pig in Southam Street ; the last peas are dis- 
tributed in the Corn Market at Oxford, where they 
arrive between eleven and twelve, and sit down to a 
sumptuous breakfast at the Angel, which they are 
made to pay for accordingly. Here the party breaks 
up, all going now different ways ; and Tom orders 
out a chaise and pair as grand as a lord, though he has 
scarcely five shillings left in his pocket and more than 
twenty miles to get home. 


THE LOWER FOURTH. 


151 

Where to, sir ? ” 

Red Lion, Farringdon,” says Tom, giving 
ostler a shilling. 

“All right, sir. Red Lion, Jem,” to the post- 
boy, and Tom rattles away towards home. At Far- 
ringdon, being known to the innkeeper, he gets that 
worthy to pay for the Oxford horses, and forward 
him in another chaise at once ; and so the gorgeous 
young gentleman arrives at the paternal mansion, 
and Squire Brown looks rather blue at having to 
pay two-pound ten-shillings for the posting expenses 
from Oxford. But the boy’s intense joy at getting 
home, and the wonderful health he is in, and the 
good character he brings, and the brave stories he 
tells of Rugby, its doings and delights, soon mollify 
the Squire, and three happier people didn’t sit down 
to dinner that day in England (it is the boy’s first 
dinner at six o’clock at home, great promotion 
already), than the Squire and his wife and Tom 
Brown at the end of his first half-year at Rugby. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

T he lower-fourth form, in which Tom found him- 
self at the beginning of the next half-year, was 
the largest form in the lower school, and num- 
bered upwards of forty boys. Young gentlemen of 
all ages from nine to fifteen, were to be found there, 
who expended such part of their energies as was 
devoted to Latin and Greek upon a book of Livy, 


152 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


the Bucolics of Virgil, and the Hecuba of Euripides, 
which were ground out in small daily portions. 
The driving of this unlucky lower-fourth must have 
been grievous work to the unfortunate master, for it 
was the most unhappily constituted of any in the 
school. Here stuck the great stupid boys, who for 
the life of them could never master the accidence ; 
the objects alternately of mirth and terror to the 
youngsters, who were daily taking them up and 
laughing at them in lesson, and getting kicked by 
them for so doing in play-hours. There were no 
less than three unhappy fellows in tail coats, with 
incipient down on their chins, whom the Doctor and 
the master of the form were always endeavouring 
to hoist into the upper school, but whose parsing 
and construing resisted the most well-meant shoves. 
Then came the mass of the form, boys of eleven and 
twelve, -the most mischievous and reckless age of 
British youth, of whom East and Tom Brown were 
fair specimens. As full of tricks as monkeys, and 
of excuses as Irish women, making fun of their master, 
one another, and their lessons, Argus himself would 
have been puzzled to keep an eye on them ; and as 
for making them steady or serious for half-an-hour 
together, it was simply hopeless. The remainder of 
the form consisted of young prodigies of nine and 
ten, who were going up the school at the rate of a 
form a half-year, all boys’ hands and wits being 
against them in their progress. It would have been 
one man’s work to see that the precocious youngsters 
had fair play; and as the master had a good deal 
besides to do, they hadn’t, and were for ever being 
shoved down three or four places, their verses stolen, 
their books inked, their jackets whitened, and their 
lives otherwise made a burden to them. 


TOM^S FALL. 


155 


The lower-fourth, and all the forms below it, were 
heard in the great school, and were not trusted to 
prepare their lessons before coming in, but were 
whipped into school three-quarters of an hour before 
the lesson began by their respective masters, and 
there scattered about on the benches, with dictionary 
and grammar, hammered out their twenty lines of 
Virgil and Euripides in the midst of Babel. The 
masters of the lower school walked up and down the 
great school together during this three-quarters of an 
hour, or sat in their desks reading or looking over 
copies, and keeping such order as was possible. But 
the lower-fourth was just now an overgrown form, too 
large for any one man to attend to properly, and 
consequently the elysium or ideal form of the young 
scapegraces who formed the staple of it. 

Tom, as has been said, had come up from the third 
with a good character, but the temptations of the 
lower-fourth soon proved too strong for him, and he 
rapidly fell away ; and became as unmanageable as 
the rest. For some weeks, indeed, he succeeded in 
maintaining the appearance of steadiness, and was 
looked upon favourably by his new master, whose 
eyes were first opened by the following little incident. 

Besides the desk which the master himself occupied, 
there was another large unoccupied desk in the corner 
of the great school, which was untenanted. To rush 
and seize upon this desk, which was ascended by 
three steps, and held four boys, was the great ob- 
ject of ambition of the lower fourthers ; and the con- 
tentions for the occupation of it bred such disorder, 
that at last the master forbade its use altogether. 
This of course was a challenge to the more adven- 
turous spirits to occupy it, and as it was capacious 
enough for two boys to lie hid there completely, it 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


154 

was seldom that it remained empty, notwithstanding 
the veto. Small holes were cut in the front, through 
which the occupants watched the masters as they 
walked up and down, and as lesson time approached, 
one boy at a time stole out and down the steps, as 
the masters’ backs were turned, and mingled with the 
general crowd on the forms below. Tom and East 
had successfully occupied the desk some half-dozen 
times, and were grown so reckless that they were in 
the habit of playing small games with fives’ -balls 
inside when the masters were at the other end of the 
big school. One day, as ill-luck would have it, the 
game became more exciting than usual, and the ball 
slipped through East’s fingers, and rolled slowly 
down the steps, and out into the middle of the school, 
just as the masters turned in their walk and faced 
round upon the desk. The young delinquents watched 
their master through the look-out holes, march slowly 
down the school straight upon their retreat, while all 
the boys in the neighbourhood of course stopped their 
work to look on : and not only were they ignomini- 
ously drawn out, and caned over the hand then and 
there, but their characters for steadiness were gone 
from that time. However, as they only shared the 
fate of some three-fourths of the rest of the form, 
this did not weigh heavily upon them. 

In fact, the only occasions on which they cared 
about the matter were the monthly examinations, 
when the Doctor came round to examine their form, 
for one long awful hour, in the work which they had 
done in the preceding month. The second monthly 
examination came round soon after Tom’s fall, and 
it was with anything but lively anticipations that he 
and the other lower-fourth boys came in to prayers 
on the morning of the examination day. 


»TRISTE lupus: 


155 


Prayers and calling-over seemed twice as short as 
usual, and before they could get construes of a tithe 
of the hard passages marked in the margin of their 
books, they were all seated round, and the Doctor 
was standing in the middle, talking in whispers to 
the master. Tom couldn’t hear a word which passed, 
and never lifted his eyes from his book ; but he knew 
by a sort of magnetic instinct that the Doctor’s under 
lip was coming out, and his eye beginning to burn, 
and his gown getting gathered up more and more 
tightly in his left hand. The suspense was agonizing, 
and Tom knew that he was sure on such occasions to 
make an example of the School-house boys. If he 
would only begin,” thought Tom, **1 shouldn’t 
mind.” 

At last the whispering ceased, and the name which 
was called out was not Brown. He looked up for a 
moment, but the Doctor’s face was too awful ; Tom 
wouldn’t have met his eye for all he was worth, and 
buried himself in his book again. 

The boy who was called up first was a clever merry 
School-house boy, one of their set : he was some 
connection of the Doctor’s, and a great favourite, 
and ran in and out of his house as he liked, and so 
was selected for the first victim. 

Triste lupus, stabulis,” began the luckless young- 
ster, and stammered through some eight or ten lines. 

“There, that will do,” said the Doctor; “now 
construe.” 

On common occasions, the boy could have con- 
strued the passage well enough probably, but now his 
head was gone. 

“ Triste lupus, the sorrowful wolf,” he began. 

A shudder ran through the whole form, and the 
Doctor’s wrath fairly boiled over ; he made three 


156 tom BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 

steps up to the construer, and gave him a good box 
on the ear. The blow was not a hard one, but the 
boy was so taken by surprise that he started back ; 
the form caught the back of his knees, and over he 
went on to the floor behind. There was a dead si- 
lence over the whole school ; never before, and never 
again while Tom was at school did the Doctor strike 
a boy in lesson. The provocation must have been 
great. However, the victim had saved his form for 
that occasion, for the Doctor turned to the top bench, 
and put on the best boys for the rest of the hour ; 
and though, at the end of the lesson, he gave them 
all such a rating as they did not forget, this terrible 
field-day passed over without any severe visitations 
in the shape of punishments or floggings. Forty 
young scapegraces expressed their thanks to the “sor- 
rowful wolf” in their different ways before second 
lesson. 

But a character for steadiness once gone is not 
easily recovered, as Tom found, and for years after- 
wards he went up to the school without it, and the 
masters’ hands were against him, and his against 
them. And he regarded them, as a matter of course, 
as his natural enemies. Matters were not so comfort- 
able either in the house as they had been, for old 
Brooke left at Christmas, and one or two others of 
the sixth-form boys at the following Easter. Their 
rule had been rough, but strong and just in the main, 
and a higher standard was beginning to be set up ; 
in fact, there had been a short foretaste of the good 
time which followed some years later. Just now, 
however, all threatened to return into darkness and 
chaos again. For the new praepostors were either 
small young boys, whose cleverness had carried them 
up to the top of the school, while in strength of body 


MISRULE AND ITS CAUSES. 


157 


and character they were not yet fit for a share in the 
government ; or else big fellows of the wrong sort, 
boys whose friendships and tastes had a downward 
tendency, who had not caught the meaning of their 
position and work, and felt none of its responsibilities. 
So under this no-government the School-house began 
to see bad times. The big fifth-form boys, who were 
a sporting and drinking set, soon began to usurp 
power, and to fag the little boys as if they were prae- 
postors, and to bully and oppress any who showed 
signs of resistance. The bigger sort of sixth-form 
boys just described soon made common cause with 
the fifth, while the smaller sort, hampered by their 
colleagues’ desertion to the enemy, could not make 
head against them. So the fags were without their law- 
ful masters and protectors, and ridden over rough-shod 
by a set of boys whom they were not bound to obey, 
and whose only right over them stood in their bodily 
powers; and, as old Brooke had prophesied, the 
house by degrees broke up into small sets and parties, 
and lost the strong feeling of fellowship which he set 
so much store by, and with it much of the prowess 
in games and the lead in all school matters which he 
had done so much to keep up. 

In no place in the world has individual character 
more weight than at a public school. Remember 
this, I beseech you, all you boys who are getting into 
the upper forms. Now is the time in all your lives 
probably when you may have more wide influence 
for good or evil on the society you live in than you 
ever can have again. Quit yourselves like men, 
then ; speak up, and strike out if necessary for what- 
soever is true, and manly, and lovely, and of good 
report ; never try to be popular, but only to do your 
duty and help others to do theirs, and you may 


158 tom BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 

leave the tone of feeling in the school higher than 
you found it, and so be doing good, which no living 
soul can measure, to generations of your countrymen 
yet unborn. For boys follow one another in herds 
like sheep, for good or evil ; they hate thinking, and 
have rarely any settled principles. Every school, 
indeed, has its own traditionary standard of right 
and wrong, which cannot be transgressed with im- 
Ipunity, marking certain things as low and black- 
guard, and certain others as lawful and right. This 
standard is ever varying, though it changes only 
slowly, and little by little ; and, subject only to such 
standard, it is the leading boys for the time being 
who give the tone to all the rest, and make the 
School either a noble institution for the training of 
Christian Englishmen, or a place where a young boy 
will get more evil than he would if he were turned 
out to make his way in London streets, or anything 
between these two extremes. 

The change for the worse in the School-house, 
however, didn’t press very heavily on our youngsters 
for some time; they were in a good bedroom, where 
slept the only praepostor left who was able to keep 
thorough order, and their study was in his passage ; 
so, though they were fagged more or less, and oc- 
casionally kicked or cuffed by the bullies, they were 
on the whole well off; and the fresh brave school- 
life, so full of games, adventures, and good fellow- 
ship, so ready at forgetting, so capacious at enjoying, 
so bright at forecasting, outweighed a thousandfold 
their troubles with the master of their form, and the 
occasional ill-usage of the big boys in the house. 
It wasn’t till some year or so after the events re- 
corded above, that the praepostor of their room and 
passage left. None of the other sixth-form boys 


BURSTING POINT 


159 


would move into their passage, and, to the disgust 
and indignation of Tom and East, one morning after 
breakfast they were seized upon by Flashman, and 
made to carry down his books and furniture into the 
unoccupied study which he had taken. From this 
time they began to feel the weight of the tyranny of 
Flashman and his friends, and, now that trouble had 
come home to their own doors, began to look out for 
sympathizers and partners amongst the rest of the 
fags ; and meetings of the oppressed began to be 
held, and murmurs to arise, and plots to be laid as 
to how they should free themselves and be avenged 
on their enemies. While matters were in this state. 
East and Tom were one evening sitting in their 
study. They had done their work for first lesson, 
and Tom was in a brown study, brooding, like a 
young William Tell, upon the wrongs of fags in 
general, and his own in particular. 

say. Scud,” said he at last, rousing himself to 
snuff the candle, “what right have the fifth-form 
boys to fag us as they do? ” 

“No more right than you have to fag them,” 
answered East, without looking up from an early 
number of “ Pickwick,” which was just coming out, 
and which he was luxuriously devouring, stretched 
on his back on the sofa. 

Tom relapsed into his brown study, and East went 
on reading and chuckling. The contrast of the 
boys’ faces would have given infinite amusement to a 
looker-on, the one so solemn and big with mighty 
purpose, the other radiant and bubbling over with 
fun. 

“Do you know, old fellow. I’ve been thinking it 
over a good deal,” began Tom again. 

“ Oh yes, I know, fagging you are thinking of. 


i6o tom BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 

Hang it all, — but listen here, Tom — here’s fun. 
Mr. Winkle’s horse ” 

“And I’ve made up my mind,” broke in Tom, 
“that I won’t fag except for the sixth.” 

“Quite right too, my boy,” cried East, putting his 
finger on the place and looking up ; “but a pretty 
peck of troubles you’ll get into, if you’re going to 
play that game. However, I’m all for a strike my- 
self, if we can get others to join — it’s getting too 
bad.” 

“ Can’t we get some sixth-form fellow to take it 
up? ” asked Tom. 

“Well, perhaps we might; Morgan would inter- 
fere, I think. Only,” added East, after a moment’s 
pause, “ you see we should have to tell him about it, 
and that’s against School principles. Don’t you 
remember what old Brooke said about learning to 
take our own parts ? ’ ’ 

“Ah, I wish old Brooke were back again — it was 
all right in his time.” 

“Why yes, you see then the strongest and best 
fellows were in the sixth, and the fifth-form fellows 
were afraid of them, and they kept good order ; but 
now our sixth-form fellows are too small, and the 
fifth don’t care for them, and do what they like in 
the house.” 

“And so we get a double set of masters,” cried 
Tom, indignantly ; “ the lawful ones, who are respon- 
sible to the Doctor at any rate, and the unlawful — 
the tyrants, who are responsible to nobody.” 

“Down with the tyrants! ” cried East; “I’m all 
for law and order, and hurra for a revolution.” 

“ I shouldn’t mind if it were only for young Brooke 
now,” said Tom, “ he’s such a good-hearted, gentle- 
manly fellow, and ought to be in the sixth — I’d 


THE EXPLOSION-. 


i6i 


do anything for him. But that blackguard Flash- 
man, who never speaks to one without a kick or an 
oath — ’ ’ 

^‘The cowardly brute,” broke in East, ^Miow I 
hate him ! And he knows it too ; he knows that you 
and I think him a coward. What a bore that he’s 
got a study in this passage! don’t you hear them 
now at supper in his den ? Brandy punch going. I’ll 
bet. I wish the Doctor would come out and 
catch him. We must change our study as soon as 
we can.” 

‘‘ Change or no change. I’ll never fag for him 
again,” said Tom, thumping the table^ 

“ Fa-a-a-ag !” sounded along the passage from 
Flashman’s study. The two boys looked at one 
another in silence. It had struck nine, so the reg- 
ular night-fags had left duty, and they were the near- 
est to the supper party. East sat up and began to 
look comical, as he always did under difficulties. 

“Fa-a-a-ag!” again. No answer. 

“ Here, Brown 1 East 1 you cursed young skulks,” 
roared out Flashman, coming to his open door, “I 
know you’re in — no shirking.” 

Tom stole to their door, and drew the bolts as 
noiselessly as he could ; East blew out the candle. 

Barricade the first,” whispered he. “ Now, Tom, 
mind, no surrender.” 

“Trust me for that,” said Tom between his teeth. 

In another minute they heard the supper-party 
turn out and come down the passage to ^heir door. 
Tliey held their breaths, and heard whispering, of 
which they only made out Flashman’s words, “ I 
know the young brutes are in.” 

Then came summonses to open, which being un- 
answered, the assault commenced : luckily the door 

II 


1 62 TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS, 

was a good strong oak one, and resisted the united 
weight of Flashman’s party. A pause followed, and 
they heard a besieger remark, “ They’re in, safe 
enough — don’t you see how the door holds at top 
and bottom? so the bolts must be drawn. We 
should have forced the lock long ago.” East gave 
Tom a nudge,to call attention to this scientific remark. 

Then came attacks on particular panels, one of 
which at last gave way to the repeated kicks ; but it 
broke inwards, and the broken piece got jammed 
across, the door being lined with green-baize, and 
couldn’t easily be removed from outside; and the 
besieged, scorning further concealment, strengthened 
their defences by pressing the end of their sofa against 
the door. So after one or two more ineffectual 
efforts, Flashman and Co. retired, vowing vengeance 
in no mild terms. 

The first danger over, it only remained for the be- 
sieged to effect a safe retreat, as it was now near bed- 
time. They listened intently, and heard the supper- 
party resettle themselves, and then gently drew back 
first one bolt and then the other. Presently the con- 
vivial noises began again steadily. “ Now then, 
stand by for a run,” said East, throwing the door 
wide open and rushing into the passage, closely fol- 
lowed by Tom. They were too quick to be caught ; 
but Flashman was on the look-out, and sent an empty 
pickle-jar whizzing after them, which narrowly 
missed Tom’s head, and broke into twenty pieces at 
the end of jhe passage. “ He wouldn’t mind kill- 
ing one if he wasn’t caught,” said East, as they 
turned the corner. 

There was no pursuit, so the two turned into the 
Hall, where they found a knot of small boys round 
the fire. Their story was told — the war of indepen- 


A COUNSELLOR OF THE REBELS. 163 

dence had broken out, — who would join the revolu- 
tionary forces ? Several others present bound them- 
selves not to fag for the fifth-form at once. One or 
two only edged off, and left the rebels. What else 
could they do? “ I’ve a good mind to go to the 
Doctor straight,” said Tom. 

“ That’ll never do — don’t you remember the levy 
of the School last half? ” put in another. 

In fact, that solemn assembly, a levy of the School, 
had been held, at which the captain of the School 
had got up, and, after premising that several instances 
had occurred of matters having been reported to the 
masters, that this was against public morality and 
School tradition ; that a levy of the sixth had been 
held on the subject, and they had resolved that the 
practice must be stopped at once ; had given out that 
any boy, in whatever form, who should thenceforth 
appeal to a master, without having first gone to some 
praepostor and laid the case before him, should be 
thrashed publicly, and sent to Coventry. 

“ Well, then, let’s try the sixth. Try Morgan,” 
suggested another. ‘‘No use” — “Blabbing won’t 
do,” was the general feeling. 

“I’ll give you fellows a piece of advice,” said a 
voice from the end of the Hall. They all turned 
round with a start, and the speaker got uji from a 
bench on which he had been lying unobserved, and 
gave himself a shake ; he was a big loose-made 
fellow, with huge limbs which had grown too far 
through his jacket and trousers. “ Don’t you go to 
anybody at all — you just stand out; say you won’t 
fag — they’ll soon get tired of licking you. I’ve 
tried it on years ago with their forerunners.” 

“No! did you? tell us how it was,” cried a 
chorus of voices, as they clustered round him. 


i 64 tom BJ? OWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 

Well, just as it is with you. The fifth-form 
would fag us, and I and some more struck, and we 
beat ’em. The good fellows left olf directly, and 
the bullies who kept on soon got afraid.” 

‘‘Was Flashman here then ? ” 

“Yes! and a dirty little snivelling, sneaking 
fellow he was too. He never dared join us, and 
used to toady the bullies by olfering to fag for them, 
and peaching against the rest of us.” 

“ Why wasn’t he cut then? ” said East. 

“ Oh, toadies never get cut, they’re too useful. 
Besides, he has no end of great hampers from home, 
with wine and game in them ; so he toadied and fed 
himself into favour.” 

The quarter-to-ten bell now rang, and the small 
boys went off up-stairs, still consulting together, and 
praising their new counsellor, who stretched himself 
out on the bench before the Hall fire again. There 
he lay, a very queer specimen of boyhood, by name 
Diggs, and familiarly called “ the Mucker.” He 
was young for his size, and a very clever fellow, 
nearly at the top of the fifth. His friends at home, 
having regard, I suppose, to his age, and not to his 
size and place in the school, hadn’t put him into 
tails ; and even his jackets were always too small ; 
and he had a talent for destroying clothes, and mak- 
ing himself look shabby. He wasn’t on terms with 
Flashman’s set, who sneered at his dress and ways 
behind his back, which he knew, and revenged him- 
self by asking Flashman the most disagreeable ques- 
tions, and treating him familiarly whenever a crowd 
of boys were round them. Neither was he intimate 
with any of the other bigger boys, who were warned 
off by his oddnesses, for he was a very queer fellow ; 
besides, amongst other failings, he had that of im- 


THE WAR RAGES. 


165 

pecuniosity in a remarkable degree. He brought as 
much money as other boys to school, but got rid of 
it in no time, no one knew how. And then, being 
also reckless, borrowed from anyone, and when his 
debts accumulated and creditors pressed, would have 
an auction in the Hall of everything he possessed in 
the world, selling even his school-books, candlestick, 
and study table. For weeks after one of these 
auctions, having rendered his study uninhabitable, 
he would live about in the fifth-form room and 
Hall, doing his verses on old letter-backs and odd 
scraps of paper, and learning his lessons no one 
knew how.- He never meddled with any little boy, 
and was popular with them, though they all looked 
on him with a sort of compassion, and called him 
“poor Diggs,” not being able to resist appearances, 
or to disregard wholly even the sneers of their enemy 
Flashman. However, he seemed equally indifferent 
to the sneers of big boys and the pity of small ones, 
and lived his own queer life with much apparent 
enjoyment to himself. It is necessary to introduce 
Diggs thus particularly, as he not only did Tom and 
East good service in their present warfare, as is 
about to be told, but soon afterwards, when he got 
into the sixth, chose them for his fags, and excused 
them from study-fagging, thereby earning unto him- 
self eternal gratitude from them, and all who are 
interested in their history. 

And seldom had small boys more need of a friend, 
for the morning after the siege the storm burst upon 
the rebels in all its violence. Flashman laid wait, 
and caught Tom before second lesson, and receiving 
a point blank “No,” when told to fetch his hat, 
seized him and twisted his arm, and went through 
the other methods of torture in use : — “ He couldn’t 


i66 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


make me cry though,” as Tom said triumphantly 
to the rest of the rebels, *‘and I kicked his shins 
well, I know.” And soon it crept out that a lot of 
the fags were in league, and Flashman excited his 
associates to join him in bringing the young vaga- 
bonds to their senses ; and the house was filled with 
constant chasings, and sieges, and lickings of all 
sorts ; and in return, the bullies’ beds were pulled to 
pieces, and drenched with water, and their names 
written up on the walls with every insulting epithet 
which the fag invention could furnish. The war in 
short raged fiercely; but soon, as Diggs had told 
them, all the better fellows in the fifth gave up 
trying to fag them, and public feeling began to set 
against Flashman and his two or three intimates, and 
they were obliged to keep their doings more secret, 
but being thorough bad fellows, missed no oppor- 
tunity of torturing in private. Flashman was an 
adept in all ways, but above all in the power of saying 
cutting and cruel things, and could often bring tears 
to the eyes of boys in this way, which all the thrash- 
ings in the world wouldn’t have wrung from them. 

And as his operations were being cut short in 
other directions, he now devoted himself chiefly to 
Tom and. East, who lived at his own door, and 
would force himself into their study whenever he 
found a chance, and sit there, sometimes alone, 
sometimes with a companion, interrupting all their 
work, and exulting in the evident pain which every 
now and then he could see he was inflicting on one 
or the other. 

The storm had cleared the air for the rest of the 
house, and a better state of things now began than 
there had been since Old Brooke had left : but an 
angry dark spot of thunder-cloud still hung over the 


THE WEAK TO THE WALL. 167 

end of the passage, where Flashman's study and 
that of East and Tom lay. 

He felt that they had been the first rebels, and 
that the rebellion had been to a great extent success- 
ful ; but what above all stirred the hatred and bitter- 
ness of his heart against them, was that in the fre- 
quent collisions which there had been of late, they 
had openly called him coward and sneak, — the 
taunts were too true to be forgiven. While he was 
in the act of thrashing them, they would roar out 
instances of his funking at football, or shirking 
some encounter with a lout of half his own size. 
These things were all well enough known in the 
house, but to have his disgrace shouted out by small 
boys, to feel that they despised him, to be unable to 
silence them by any amount of torture, and to see 
the open laugh and sneer of his own associates (who 
were looking on and took no trouble to hide their 
scorn from him, though they neither interfered with 
his bullying or lived a bit the less intimately with 
him,) made him beside himself. Come what might 
he would make those boys’ lives miserable. So the 
strife settled down into a personal affair between 
Flashman and our youngsters ; a war to the knife, 
to be fought out in the little cockpit at the end of 
the bottom passage. 

Flashman, be it said, was about seventeen years old, 
and big and strong of his age. He played well at all 
games where pluck wasn’t much wanted, and man- 
aged generally to keep up appearances where it was ; and 
having a bluff off-hand manner which passed for heart- 
iness, and considerable powers of being pleasant 
when he liked, went down with the School in general 
for a good fellow enough. Even in the School-house, 
by dint of his command of money, the constant sup- 


1 68 tom BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 

ply of good things which he kept up, and his adroit 
toadyism, he had managed to make himself not only 
tolerated, but rather popular amongst his own contem- 
poraries ; although young Brooke scarcely spoke to 
him, and one or two others of the right sort showed 
their opinions of him whenever a chance offered. 
But the wrong sort happened to be in the ascendant 
just now, so Flashman was a formidable enemy for 
small boys. This soon became plain enough. Flash- 
man left no slander unspoken, and no deed undone, 
which could in any way hurt his victims, or isolate 
them from the rest of the house. One by one most 
of the other rebels fell away from them, while Flash- 
man’s cause prospered, and several other fifth-form 
boys began to look black at them and ill-treat them 
as they passed about the house. By keeping out of 
bounds, or at all events out of the house and quad- 
rangle, all day, and carefully barring themselves in at 
night. East and Tom managed to hold on without 
feeling very miserable ; but it was as much as they 
could do. Greatly were they drawn then towards old 
Diggs, who, in an uncouth way, began to take a good 
deal of notice of them, and once or twice came to 
their study when Flashman was there, who immedi- 
ately decamped in consequence. The boys thought 
that Diggs must have been watching. 

' When therefore, about this time, an auction was 
one night announced to take place in the Hall, at 
which, amongst the superfluities of other boys, all 
Diggs’ Penates for the time being were going to the 
hammer. East and Tom laid their heads together, and 
resolved to devote their ready cash (some four shil- 
lings sterling) to redeem such articles as that sum 
would cover. Accordingly, they duly attended to 
bid, and Tom became the owner of two lots of Diggs’ 


THE DERBY LOTTERY, 


169 

things; — lot i, price one-and-threepence, consisting 
(as the auctioneer remarked) of a “valuable assort- 
ment of old metals,” in the shape of a mouse-trap, 
a cheese-toaster without a handle, and a saucepan : 
lot 2, of a villanous dirty table-cloth and a green- 
baize curtain ; while East for one-and-sixpence pur- 
chased a leather paper-case, with a lock but no key, 
once handsome, but now much the worse for wear. 
But they had still the point to settle of how to get 
Diggs to take the things without hurting his feelings. 
This they solved by leaving them in his study, which 
was never locked when he was out. Diggs, who had 
attended the auction, remembered who had bought 
the lots, and came to their study soon after, and sat 
silent for some time, cracking his great red finger- 
joints. Then he laid hold of their verses, and began 
looking over and altering them, and at last got up, 
and turning his back to them, said, “ You’re uncom- 
mon good-hearted little beggars, you two — I value 
that paper-case; my sister gave it me last holidays — 
I won’t forget ;” and so tumbled out into the pas- 
sage, leaving them somewhat embarrassed, but not 
sorry that he knew what they had done. 

The next morning was Saturday, the day on which 
the allowances of one shilling a-week were paid, an 
important event to spendthrift youngsters ; and great 
was the disgust amongst the small fry to hear that all 
the allowances had been impounded for the Derby 
lottery. That great event in the English year, the 
Derby, was celebrated at Rugby in those days by 
many lotteries. It was not an improving custom, I 
own, gentle reader, and led to making books and 
betting and other objectionable results ; but when 
our great Houses of Palaver think it right to stop the 
nation’s business on that day, and many of the mem- 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


170 

bers bet heavily themselves, can you blame us boys 
for following the example of our betters ? — at any 
rate we did follow it. First there was the great 
School lottery, where the first prize was six or seven 
pounds ; then each House had one or more separate 
lotteries. These were all nominally voluntary, no 
boy being compelled to put in his shilling who didn’t 
choose to do so : but besides Flashman, there were 
three or four other fast sporting young gentlemen in 
the School-house, who considered subscription a mat- 
ter of duty and necessity, and so, to make their duty 
come easy to the small boys, quietly secured the al- 
lowances in a lump when given out for distribution, 
and kept them. It was no use grumbling, — so many 
fewer tartlets and apples were eaten and fives’ -balls 
bought on that Saturday ; and after locking-up, when 
the mpney would otherwise have been spent, consola- 
tion was carried to many a small boy, by the sound 
•of the night-fags shouting along the passages, 
“ Gentlemen sportsmen of the School-house, the lot- 
tery’s going to be drawn in the Hall.” It was pleas- 
ant to be called a gentleman sportsman — also to 
have a chance of drawing a favourite horse. 

The Hall was full of boys, and at the head of one 
of the long tables stood the sporting interest, with a 
hat before them, in which were the tickets folded up. 
One of them then began calling out the list of the 
House ; each boy as his name was called drew a ticket 
from the hat and opened it ; and most of the bigger 
boys, after drawing, left the Hall directly to go back 
to their studies or the fifth-form room. The sport- 
ing interest had all drawn blanks, and they were sulky 
accordingly ; neither of the favourites had yet been 
drawn, and it had come down to the upper-fourth. 
So now, as each small boy came up and drew his 


TOM DRAWS THE FAVOURITE, 


171 

ticket, it was seized and opened- by Flashman, or 
some other of the standers-by. But no great favour- 
ite is drawn until it comes to the Tadpole’s turn, and 
he shuffles up and draws, and tries to make offj but 
is caught, and his ticket is opened like the rest. 

“ Here you are ! Wanderer ! the third favourite,” 
shouts the opener. 

“I say, just give me my ticket, please,” remon- 
strates Tadpole. 

‘‘ Hullo, don’t be in a hurry,” breaks in Flashman, 
^‘what’ll you sell Wanderer for, now?” 

‘‘I don’t want to sell,” rejoins Tadpole. 

*‘Oh, don’t you! Now listen, you young fool — 
you don’t know anything about it; the h,orse is no 
use to you. He won’t win, but I want him as a 
hedge. Now I’ll give you half-a-crown for him.” 
Tadpole holds out, but between threats and cajoleries 
at length sells half for one-shilling-and-sixpence, 
about a fifth of its fair market value ; however, he is 
glad to realize anything, and as he wisely remarks, 
“ Wanderer mayn’t win, and the tizzy is safe any- 
how.” 

East presently comes up and draws a blank. Soon 
after comes Tom’s turn ; his ticket, like the others, 
is seized and opened. Here you are then,” shouts 
the opener, holding it up, “ Harkaway ! By Jove, 
Flashey, your young friend’s in luck.” 

“Give me the ticket,” says Flashman with an 
oath, leaning across the table with open hand, and his 
face black with rage. 

“Wouldn’t you like it?” replies the opener, not 
a bad fellow at the bottom, and no admirer of Flash- 
man’s. “ Here, Brown, catch hold,” and he hands 
the ticket to Tom, who pockets it ; whereupon Flash- 
man makes for the door at once, that Tom and the 


172 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


ticket may not escape, and there keeps watch until 
the drawing is over and all the boys are gone, except 
the sporting set of five or six, who stay to compare 
books, make bets and so on, Tom, who doesn’t 
choose to move while Flashman is at the door, and 
East, who stays by his friend, anticipating trouble. 

The sporting set now gathered round Tom. Pub- 
lic opinion wouldn’t allow them actually to rob him 
of his ticket, but any humbug or intimidation by 
which he could be driven to sell the whole or part at 
an under value was lawful. 

Now, young Brown, come, what’ll you sell me 
Harkaway for? I hear he isn’t going to start. I’ll 
give you five shillings for him,” begins the boy who 
had opened the ticket. Tom, remembering his good 
deed, and moreover in his forlorn state wishing to 
make a friend, is about to accept the offer, when 
another cries out, ‘‘I’ll give you seven shillings.’* 
Tom hesitated, and looked from one to the other. 

“ No, no ! ” said Flashman, pushing in, “ leave me 
to deal with him ; we’ll draw lots for it afterwards. 
Now, sir, you know me — you’ll sell Harkaway to us 
for five shillings, or you’ll repent it.” 

“I won’t sell a bit of him,” answered Tom, 
shortly. 

“You hear that now ! ” said Flashman, turning to 
the others. “ He’s the coxiest young blackguard in 
the house — I always told you so. We’re to have all 
the trouble and risk of getting up the lotteries for the 
benefit of such fellows as he.” 

Flashman forgets to explain what risk they ran, 
but he speaks to willing ears. Gambling makes boys 
selfish and cruel as well as men. 

“That’s true, — we always draw blanks,” cried 
one. “ Now, sir, you shall sell half, at any rate.” 


ROASTING A FAG. 


173 


I won’t,” said Tom, flushing up to his hair, and 
lumping them all in his mind with his sworn 
enemy. 

“ Very well then, let’s roast him,” cried Flashman, 
and catches hold of Tom by the collar : one or two 
boys hesitate, but the rest join in. East seizes Tom’s 
arm and tries to pull him away, but is knocked back 
by one of the boys, and Tom is dragged along, strug- 
gling. His shoulders are pushed against the mantel- 
piece, and he is held by main force before the fire, 
Flashman drawing his trousers tight by way of extra 
torture. Poor East, in more pain even than Tom, 
suddenly thinks of Diggs, and darts off to find him. 

Will you sell him for ten shillings? ” says one boy 
who is relenting. 

Tom only answers by groans and struggles. 

“ I say. Flashy, he has had enough,” says the same 
boy, dropping the arm he holds. 

“No, no; another turn’ll do it,” answers Flash- 
man. But poor Tom is done already, turns deadly 
pale, and his head falls forward on his breast, just as 
Diggs, in frantic excitement, rushes into the Hall with 
East at his heels. 

“You cowardly brutes !” is all he can say, as he 
catches Tom from them and supports him to the Hall 
table. “Good God! he’s dying. Here, get some 
cold water — run for the housekeeper.” 

Flashman and one or two others slink away ; the 
rest, ashamed and sorry, bend over Tom or run for 
water, while East darts off for the housekeeper. Water 
comes, and they throw it on his hands and face, and 
he begins to come to. “ Mother !” — the words came 
feebly and slowly — “ it’s very cold to-night.” Poor 
old Diggs is blubbering like a child. “Where am 
I?” goes on Tom, opening his eyes. “Ah! I 


174 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


remember now,” and he shut his eyes again and 
groaned. 

“Isay,” is whispered, “we can’t do any good, 
and the housekeeper will be here in a minute,” and 
all but one steal away ; he stays with Diggs, silent 
and sorrowful, and fans Tom’s face. 

The housekeeper comes in with strong salts, and 
Tom soon recovers enough to sit up. There is a 
smell of burning ; she examines his clothes, and 
looks up inquiringly. The boys are silent. 

“ How did he come so ? ” No answer. 

“There’s been some bad work here,” she adds, 
looking very serious, “ and I shall speak to the Doctor 
about it.” Still no answer. 

“ Hadn’t we better carry him to the sick-room? ” 
suggests Diggs. 

“ Oh, I can walk now,” says Tom ; and, supported 
by East and the housekeeper, goes to the sick-room. 
The boy who held his ground is soon amongst the 
rest, who are all in fear of their lives. “ Did he 
peach ?” “ Does she know about it ? ” 

“ Not a word — he’s a stanch little fellow.” And 
pausing a moment he adds, I’m sick of this work : 
what brutes we’ve been ! ” 

Meantime Tom is stretched on the sofa in the 
housekeeper’s room, with East by his side, while she 
gets wine and water and other restoratives. 

“Are you much hurt, dear old boy ?” whispers 
East. 

“ Only the back of my legs,” answers Tom. 
They are indeed badly scorched, and part of his 
trousers burnt through. But soon he is in bed witli 
cold bandages. At first he feels broken, and thinks 
of writing home and getting taken away ; and the 
verse of a hymn he had learned years ago sings 


TOM DISCLOSES NOTHING. 


175 

through his head, and he goes to sleep, murmur- 
ing— 

“ Where the wicked cease from troubling. 

And the weary are at rest." 

But after a sound night’s rest the old boy-spirit 
comes back again. East comes in reporting that the 
whole House is with him, and he forgets everything 
except their old resolve, never to be beaten by that 
bully Flashman. 

Not a word could the housekeeper extract from 
either of them, and though the Doctor knew all that 
she knew that morning, he never knew any more. 

I trust and believe that such scenes are not possible 
now at school, and that lotteries and betting-books 
have gone out ; but I am writing of schools as they 
were in our time, and must give the evil with the 
good. 


o 

CHAPTER IX. 

A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS. 

W HEN Tom came back into school after a couple of 
days in the sick-room, he found matters much 
changed for the better, as East had led him 
to expect. Flashman ’s brutality had disgusted most 
even of his intimate friends, and his cowardice had 
once more been made plain to the House ; for Diggs 
had encountered him on the morning after the 
lottery, and after high words on both sides had 
struck him, and the blow was not returned. How- 
ever, Flashey was not unused to this sort of thing, 
and had lived through as awkward affairs before, and, 
as Diggs had said, fed and toadied himself back into 


176 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 

favour again. Two or three of the boys who had 
helped to roast Tom came up and begged his pardon, 
and thanked him for not telling anything. Morgan 
sent for him, and was inclined to take the matter up 
warmly, but Tom begged him not to do it ; to which 
he agreed, on Tom’s promising to come to him at 
once in future — a promise which I regret to say he 
didn’t keep. Tom kept Harkaway all to himself, 
and won the second prize in the lottery, some thirty 
shillings, which he and East contrived to spend in 
about three days, in the purchase of pictures for their 
study, two new bats and a cricket-ball, all the best 
that could be got, and a supper of sausages, kidneys, 
and beefsteak pies to all the rebels. Light come, 
light go ; they wouldn’t have been comfortable with 
money in their pockets in the middle of the half. 

The embers of Flashman’s wrath, however, were 
still smouldering, and burst out every now and then 
in sly blows and taunts, and they both felt that they 
hadn’t quite done with him yet. It wasn’t long, 
however, before the last act of that drama came, and 
with it, the end of bullying for Tom and East at 
Rugby. They now often stole out into the Hall at 
nights, incited thereto, partly by the hope of finding 
Diggs there and having a talk with him, partly by 
the excitement of doing something which was against 
rules; for, sad to say, both of our youngsters, since 
their loss of character for steadiness in their form, 
had got into the habit of doing things which were 
forbidden, as a matter of adventure ; just in the same 
way, I should fancy, as men fall into smuggling, and 
for the same sort of reasons. Thoughtlessness in the 
first place. It never occurred to them to consider 
why such and such rules were laid down ; the reason 
was nothing to them ; and they only looked upon rules 


RULE BREAKING. 


177 


as a sort of challenge from the rule-makers, which it 
would be rather bad pluck in them not to accept ; 
and then again, in the lower parts of the school they 
hadn’t enough to do. The work of the form they 
could manage to get through pretty easily, keeping 
a good enough place to get their regular yearly re- 
move ; and not having much ambition beyond this, 
their whole superfluous steam was available for games 
and scrapes. Now, one rule of the House which it 
was a daily pleasure of all such boys to break, was 
that after supper all fags, except the three on duty in 
the passages, should remain in their own studies until 
nine o’clock; and if caught about the passages or 
Hall, or in one another’s studies, they were liable to 
punishments or caning. The rule was stricter than 
its observance ; for most of the sixth spent their even- 
ings in the fifth-form room, where the library was, 
and the lessons were learnt in common. Every now 
and then, however, a praepostor would be seized with 
a fit of district visiting, and would make a tour of the 
passages and Hall and the fags’ studies. Then, if 
the owner were entertaining a friend or two, the first 
kick at the door and ominous “ Open here,” had the 
effect of the shadow of a hawk over a chicken-yard ; 
every one cut to cover — one small boy diving under 
the sofa, another under the table, while the owner 
would hastily pull down a book or two and open 
them, and cry out in a meek voice, “ Hullo, who’s 
there? ” casting an anxious eye round to see that no 
protruding leg or elbow could betray the hidden 
boys. “Open, sir, directly; it’s Snooks.” “Oh, 
I’m very sorry; I didn’t know it was you, Snooks ;” 
and then, with well-feigned zeal, the door would be 
opened, young hopeful praying that that beast Snooks 
mightn’t have heard the scuffle caused by his coming. 

12 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


178 

If a study was empty, Snooks proceeded to draw the 
passages and Hall to find the truants. 

Well, one evening, in forbidden hours, Tom and 
East were in the Hall. They occupied the seats be- 
fore the fire nearest the door, while Diggs sprawled 
as usual before the further fire. He was busy with 
a copy of verses, and East and Tom were chatting 
together in whispers by the light of the fire, and 
splicing a favourite old fives’ -bat which had sprung. 
Presently a step came down the bottom passage; 
they listened a moment, assured themselves that it 
wasn’t a praepostor, and then went on with their work, 
and the door swung open, and in walked Flashman. 
He didn’t see Diggs, and thought it a good chance 
to keep his hand in ; and as the boys didn’t move for 
him, struck one of them, to make them get out of his 
way. 

‘^What’s that for?” growled the assaulted one. 

Because I choose. You’ve no business here ; 
go to your study.” 

You can’t send us.” 

“Can’t I? Then I’ll thrash you if you stay,” 
said Flashman, savagely. 

“Isay, you two,” said Diggs, from the end 
of the Hall, rousing up and resting himself on his 
elbow, “you’ll never get rid of that fellow till you 
lick him. Go in at him, both of you — I’ll see fair 
play.” 

Flashman was taken aback, and retreated two steps. 
East looked at Tom. “Shall we try?” said he. 
“ Yes,” said Tom, desperately. So the two advanced 
on Flashman, with clenched fists and beating hearts. 
They were about up to his shoulder, but tough boys 
of their age, and in perfect training : while he, 
though strong and big, was in poor condition, from 


THE BRUISED WORM WILL TURN. 


179 


his monstrous habits of stuffing and want of exercise. 
Coward as he was, however, Flashman couldn’t 
swallow such an insult as this ; besides, he was con- 
fident of having easy work, and so faced the boys, 
saying, “You impudent young blackguards ! ” — Be- 
fore he could finish his abuse, they rushed in on him, 
and began pummelling at all of him which they could 
reach. He hit out wildly and savagely, but the full 
force of his blows didn’t tell, they were too near him. 
It was long odds, though, in point of strength, and 
in another minute Tom went spinning backwards over 
a form, and Flashman turned to demolish East, with 
a savage grin. But now Diggs jumped down from the 
table on which he had seated himself. “ Stop there,” 
shouted he ; “ the round’s over — half-minute time 
allowed.” 

“ What the is it to you ? ” faltered Flashman, 

who began to lose heart. 

“ I’m going to see fair, I tell you,” said Diggs with 
a grin, and snapping his great red fingers; “’tain’t 
fair for you to be %hting one of them at a time. 
Are you ready, Brown ? Time’s up.” 

The small boys rushed in again. Closing they saw 
was their best chance, and Flashman was wilder and 
more flurried than ever : he caught East by the 
throat, and tried to force him back on the iron- 
bound table ; Tom grasped his waist, and, remem- 
bering the old throw he had learned in the Vale 
from Harry Winburn, crooked his leg inside Flash- 
man’s, and threw his whole weight forward. The 
three tottered for a moment, and then over they 
went on to the floor, Flashman striking his head 
against a form in the Hall. 

The two youngsters sprang to their legs, but he 
lay there still. They began to be frightened. Tom 


l8o TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 

Stooped down, and then cried out, scared out of his 
wits. “He’s bleeding awfully; come here, East, 
Diggs, — he’s dying ! ’’ 

‘ ‘ Not he, ” said Diggs, getting leisurely off the table ; 
“ it’s all sham — he’s only afraid to fight it out.” 

East was as frightened as Tom. Diggs lifted 
Flashman’s head, and he groaned. 

What’s the matter ? ” shouted Diggs. 

*^My skull’s fractured,” sobbed Flashman. 

“ Oh, let me run for the housekeeper,” cried Tom. 

What shall we do ? ” 

“ Fiddlesticks ! it’s nothing but the skin broken,” 
said the relentless Diggs, feeling his head. “ Cold 
water and a bit of rag’s all he’ll want.” 

“ Let me go,” said Flashman, surlily, sitting up; 
“ I don’t want your help.” 

“ We’re really very sorry,” began East. 

“ Hang your sorrow,” answered Flashman, holding 
his handkerchief to the place ; “ you shall pay for this, 
I can tell you, both of you.” And he walked out of 
the Hall. 

“He can’t be very bad,” said Tom with a deep 
sigh, much relieved to see his enemy march so well. 

“Not he,” said Diggs, “and you’ll see you 
won’t be troubled with him any more. But, I say, 
your head’s broken too — your collar is covered with 
blood.” 

“ Is it, though ? ” said Tom, putting up his hand ; 
“ I didn’t know it.” 

“Well, mop it up, or you’ll have your jacket 
spoilt. And you have got a nasty eye. Scud ; you’d 
better go and bathe it well in cold water.” 

“ Cheap enough too, if we’ve done with our old 
friend Flashey,” said East, as they made off up stairs 
to bathe their wounds. 


PENALTIES OF WAR. l8i 

They had done with Flashman in one sense, for 
he never laid finger on either of them again ; but 
whatever harm a spiteful heart and venomous tongue 
could do them he took care should be done. Only 
throw dirt enough, and some of it is sure to stick ; 
and so it was with the fifth form and the bigger boys 
in general, with whom he associated more or less, 
and they not at all. Flashman managed to get Tom 
and East into disfavour, which did not wear off for 
some time after the author of it had disappeared 
from the School world. This event, much prayed 
for by the small fry in general, took place a few 
months after the above encounter. One fine sum- 
mer evening Flashman had been regaling himself on 
gin-punch, at Brownsover; and having exceeded his 
usual limits, started home uproarious. He fell in 
with a friend or two coming back from bathing, pro- 
posed a glass of beer, to which they assented, the 
weather being hot, and they thirsty souls-, and una- 
ware of the quantity of drink which Flashman had 
already on board. The short result was, that 
Flashey became beastly drunk ; they tried to get 
him along, but couldn’t; so they chartered a hurdle 
and two men to carry him. One of the masters 
came upon them, and they naturally enough fled. 
The flight of the rest raised the master’s suspicions, 
and the good angel of the fags incited him to exam- 
ine the freight, and, after examination, to convoy 
the hurdle himself up to the School-house ; and the 
Doctor, who had long had his eye on Flashman, 
arranged for his withdrawal next morning. 

The evil that men, and boys too, do, lives after them : 
Flashman was gone, but our boys, as hinted above, still 
felt the effects of his hate. Besides, they had been the 
movers of the strike against unlawful fogging. The 


i 82 tom BROWNES school days. 

cause was righteous — the result had been triumphant 
to a great extent ; but the best of the fifth, even 
those who had never fagged the small boys, or had 
given up the practice cheerfully, couldn’t help feel- 
ing a small grudge against the first rebels. After 
all, their form had been defied — on just grounds, 
no doubt ; so just, indeed, that they had at once 
acknowledged the wrong and remained passive in the 
strife : had they sided with Flashman and his set, 
the rebels must have given way at once. They 
couldn’t help, on the whole, being glad that they 
had so acted, and that the resistance had been suc- 
cessful against such of their own form as had shown 
fight ; they felt that law and order had gained 
thereby, but the ringleaders they couldn’t quite par- 
don at once. Confoundedly coxy those young ras- 
cals will get, if we don’t mind,” was the general 
feeling. 

So it is, and must be always, my dear boys. If 
the Angel Gabriel were to come down from heaven, 
and head a successful rise against the most abomi- 
nable and unrighteous vested interest, which this poor 
old world groans under, he would most certainly lose 
his character for many years, probably for centuries, 
not only with the upholders of said vested interest, 
but with the respectable mass of the people whom he 
had delivered. They wouldn’t ask him to dinner, or 
let their names appear with his in the papers ; they 
would be very careful how they spoke of him in the 
Palaver, or at their clubs. What can we expect, 
then, when we have only poor gallant blundering 
men like Kossuth, Garibaldi, Mazzini, and righteous 
causes which do not triumph in their hands ; men 
who have holes enough in their armour, God knows, 
easy to be hit by respectabilities sitting in their 


FATE OF LIBERATORS. 


183 

lounging chairs, and having large balances at their 
bankers ? But you are brave, gallant boys, who hate 
easy-chairs, and have no balances or bankers. You 
only want to have your heads set straight to take the 
right side : so bear in mind that majorities, 
especially respectable ones, are nine times out of ten 
in the wrong; and that if you see a man or boy 
striving earnestly on the weak side, however wrong- 
headed or blundering he may be, you are not to go 
and join the cry against him. If you can’t join him 
and help him, and make him wiser, at any rate 
remember that he has found something in the world 
which he will fight and suffer for, which is just what 
you have got to do for yourselves ; and so think and 
speak of him tenderly. 

So East and Tom, the Tadpole, and one or two 
more, became a sort of young Ishmaelites, their 
hands against every one, and every one’s hand against 
them. It has been already told how they got to war 
with the masters and the fifth form, and with the 
sixth it was much the same. They saw the prae- 
postors cowed by or joining with the fifth, and shirk- 
ing their own duties ; so they didn’t respect them, 
and rendered no willing obedience. It had been 
one thing to clean out studies for sons of heroes like 
old Brooke, but quite another to do the like for 
Snooks and Green, who had never faced a good 
scrummage at football, and couldn’t keep the pas- 
sages in order at night. So they only slurred 
through their fagging just well enough to escape a 
licking, and not always that, and got the character 
of sulky, unwilling fags. In the fifth-form room, 
after supper, when such matters were often discussed 
and arranged, their names were for ever coming 
up. 


1 84 TOAI BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 

“I say, Green,” Snooks began one night, ‘‘isn’t 
that new boy, Harrison, your fag? ” 

“ Yes ; why ? ” 

“ Oh, I know something of him at home, and 
should like to excuse him — will you swop? ” 

“ Who will you give me? ” 

“ Well, let’s see ; there’s Willis, Johnson — No, that 
won’t do. Yes, I have it — there’s young East, I’ll 
give you him.” 

“ Don’t you wish you may get it ? ” replied Green. 
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do — I’ll give you two for 
Willis if you like.” 

“ Who then ? ” asks Snooks. 

“ Hall and Brown.” 

“ Wouldn’t have ’em at a gift.” 

“Better than East, though; for they ain’t quite 
so sharp,” said Green, getting up and leaning his 
back against the mantelpiece — he wasn’t a bad fellow, 
and couldn’t help not being able to put down the 
unruly fifth form. His eye twinkled as he went on, 
“ Did I ever tell you how the young vagabond sold 
me last half? ” 

“ No ; how ? ” 

“ Well, he never half cleaned my study out, only 
just stuck the candlesticks in the cupboard, and swept 
the crumbs on to the floor. So at last I was mortal 
angry, and had him up, made him go through the 
whole performance under my eyes : the dust the 
young scamp made nearly choked me, and showed 
that he hadn’t swept the carpet before. Well, when 
it was all finished, ‘ Now, young gentleman,’ says I, 
‘ mind, I expect this to be done every morning, 
floor swept, table-cloth taken off and shaken, and 
everything dusted.’ ‘Very well,’ grunts he. Not 
a bit of it though — I was quite sure in a day or 


THE ISHMAELITES. 


185 

two that he never took the table-cloth off even. So 
I laid a trap for him : I tore up some paper and 
put half-a-dozen bits on my table one night, and the 
cloth over them as usual. Next morning, after 
breakfast, up I came, pulled off the cloth, and sure 
enough there was the paper, which fluttered down 
on to the floor. I was in a towering rage. ‘ I’ve got 
you now,’ thought I, and sent for him, while I got 
out my cane. Up he came as cool as you please, 
with his hands in his pockets. ‘ Didn’t I tell you 
to shake my table-cloth every morning ? ’ roared I. 
‘Yes,’ says he. ‘Did you do it this morning?’ 
‘Yes.’ ‘You young liar! I put these pieces of 
paper on the table last night, and if you’d taken 
the table-cloth off you’d have seen them, so I’m 
going to give you a good licking.’ Then my 
youngster takes one hand out of his pocket, and 
just stoops down and picks up two of the bits of 
paper, and holds them out to me.* There was writ- 
ten on each, in great round text, ‘ Harry East, his 
mark.’ The young rogue had found my trap out, 
taken away my paper, and put some of his there, 
every bit ear-marked. I’d a great mind to lick 
him for his impudence, but after all one has no 
right to be laying traps, so I didn’t. Of course I 
was at his mercy till the end of the half, and in his 
weeks my study was so frowsy, I couldn’t sit in it.” 

“They spoil one’s things so, too,” chimed in a 
third boy. “ Hall and Brown were night-fags last 
week : I called fag, and gave them my candlesticks 
to clean; away they went, and didn’t appear again. 
When they’d had time enough to clean them three 
times over, I went out to look after them. They 
weren’t in the passages, so down I went into the 
Hall, where I heard music, and there I found them 


i86 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


sitting on a table, listening to Johnson, who was 
playing the flute, and my candlesticks stuck between 
the bars well into the fire, red-hot, clean-spoiled ; 
they’ve never stood straight since, and I must get 
some more. However, I gave them both a good 
licking, that’s one comfort.” 

Such were the sort of scrapes they were always 
getting into : and so, partly by their own faults, 
partly from circumstances, partly from the faults of 
others, they found themselves outlaws, ticket-of-leave 
men, or what you will in that line : in short, danger- 
ous parties, and lived the sort of hand-to-mouth, 
wild, reckless life which such parties generally have 
to put up with. Nevertheless, they never quite lost 
favour with young Brooke, who was now the cock of 
the house, and just getting into the sixth, and Diggs 
stuck to them like a man, and gave them store of 
good advice, by which they never in the least 
profited. 

And even after the house mended, and law and 
order had been restored, which soon happened after 
young Brooke and Diggs got into the sixth, they 
couldn’t easily or at once return into the paths of 
steadiness, and many of the old wild out-of-bounds 
habits stuck to them as firmly as ever. While they had 
been quite little boys, the scrapes they got into in the 
School hadn’t much mattered to anyone ; but now 
they were in the upper school, all wrong-doers from 
which were sent up straight to the Doctor at once : 
so they began to come under his notice ; and as they 
were a sort of leaders in a small way amongst their 
own contemporaries, his eye, which was everywhere, 
was upon them. 

It was a toss-up whether they turned out well or 
ill, and so they were just the boys who caused most 


THE AVON. 


187 

anxiety to such a master. You have been told of 
the first occasion on which they were sent up to the 
Doctor, and the remembrance of it was so pleasant 
that they had much less fear of him than most boys 
of their standing had. “It’s all his look,” Tom 
used to say to East, “ that frightens fellows: don’t 
you remember, he never said anything to us my first 
half-year, for being an hour late for locking up?” 

The next time that Tom came before him, how- 
ever, the interview was of a very different kind. It 
happened just about the time at which we have now 
arrived, and was the first of a series of scrapes into 
which our hero managed now to tumble. 

The river Avon at Rugby is a slow and not very 
clear stream, in which chub, dace, roach, and other 
coarse fish are (or were) plentiful enough, together 
with a fair sprinkling of small jack, but no fish 
worth six-pence either for sport or food. It is, how- 
ever, a capital river for bathing, as it has many nice 
small pools and several good reaches for swimming, 
all within about a mile of one another, and at an 
easy twenty minutes’ walk from the school. This 
mile of water is rented, or used to be rented, for 
bathing purposes, by the Trustees of the School, for 
the boys. The footpath to Brownsover crosses the 
river by “ the Planks,” a curious old single-plank 
bridge, running for fifty or sixty yards into the flat 
meadows on each side of the river, — for in the win- 
ter there are frequent floods. Above the Planks 
were the bathing places for the smaller boys ; 
Sleath’s, the first bathing place where all new boys 
had to begin, until they had proved to the bathing 
men (three steady individuals who were paid to 
attend daily through the summer to prevent acci- 
dents) that they could swim pretty decently, when 


1 88 tom BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 

they were allowed to go on to Anstey’s, about one 
hundred and fifty yards below. Here there was a 
hole about six feet deep and twelve feet across, over 
which the puffing urchins struggled to the opposite 
side, and thought no small beer of themselves for 
having been out of their depths. Below the Planks 
came larger and deeper holes, the first of which was 
Wratislaw’s, and the last Swift’s, a famous hole, ten 
or twelve feet deep in parts, and thirty yards across, 
from which there was a fine swimming reach right 
<^own to the Mill. Swift’s was reserved for the sixth 
and fifth forms, and had a spring board and two sets 
of steps : the others had one set of steps each, and 
were used indifferently by all the lower boys, though 
each house addicted itself more to one hole than to 
another. The School-house at this time affected 
Wratislaw’s hole, and Tom and East, who had learnt 
to swim like fishes, were to be found there as regular 
as the clock through the summer, always twice, and 
often three times a day. 

Now the boys either had, or fancied they had, a 
right also to fish at their pleasure over the whole 
of this part of the river, and would not understand 
that the right (if any) only extended to the Rugby 
side. As ill luck would have it, the gentleman who 
owned the opposite bank, after allowing it for some 
time without interference, had ordered his keepers 
not to let the boys fish on his side ; the consequence 
of which had been, that there had been first 
wranglings and then fights between the keepers and 
boys ; and so keen had the quarrel become, that the 
landlord and his keepers, after a ducking had been 
inflicted on one of the latter, and a fierce fight en- 
sued thereon, had been up to the great School at call- 
ing-over to identify the delinquents, and it was all 


DISPUTED RIGHTS OF FISHING. 


189 

the Doctor himself and five or six masters could do 
to keep the peace. Not even his authority could 
prevent the hissing ; and so strong was the feeling, 
that the four praepostors of the week walked up the 
school with their canes, shouting S-s-s-s-i-lenc-c-c-c-e 
at the top of their voices. However, the chief of- 
fenders for the time were flogged and kept in bounds, 
but the victorious party had brought a nice hornets’ 
nest about their ears. The landlord was hissed at 
the School gates as he rode past, and when he 
charged his horse at the mob of boys, and tried to 
thrash them with his whip, was driven back by 
cricket-bats and wickets, and pursued with pebbles 
and fives’-balls ; while the wretched keepers’ lives 
were a burthen to them, from having to watch the 
waters so closely. 

The School-house boys of Tom’s standing, one and 
all, as a protest against this tyranny and cutting 
short of their lawful amusements, took to fishing in 
all ways, and especially by means of night-lines. The 
little tackle-maker at the bottom of the town would 
soon have made his fortune had the rage lasted, and sev- 
eral of the barbers began to lay in fishing-tackle. The 
boys had this great advantage over their enemies, 
that they spent a large portion of the day in nature’s 
garb by the river side, and so, when tired of swim- 
ming, would get out on the other side and fish, or 
set night-lines till the keeper hove in sight, and then 
, plunge in and swim back and mix with the other 
bathers, and the keepers were too wise to follow across 
the stream. 

While things were in this state, one day Tom and 
three or four others were bathing at Wratislaw’s, and 
had, as a matter of course, been taking up and re- 
setting night-lines. They had all left the water, and 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


190 

were sitting or standing about at their toilets, in all 
costumes from a shirt upwards, when they were aware 
of a man in a velveteen shooting-coat approaching 
from the other side. He was a new keeper, so they 
didn’t recognise or notice him, till he pulled up right 
opposite, and began : — 

“I see’d some of you young gentlemen over this 
side a fishing just now.” 

“Hullo, who are you? what business is that of 
yours, old Velveteens?” 

“ I’m the new under-keeper, and master’s told me 
to keep a sharp look-out on all o’ you young chaps. 
And I tells ’ee I means business, and you’d better 
keep on your own side, or we shall fall out.” 

“ Well, that’s right. Velveteens — speak out, and 
let’s know your mind at once.” 

“Look here, old boy,” cried East, holding up a 
miserable coarse fish or tw(5 and a small jack, “ would 
you like to smell ’em and see which bank they lived 
under? ” 

“I’ll give you a bit of advice, keeper,” shouted 
Tom, who was sitting in his shirt paddling with his 
feet in the river ; “ you’d better go down there ta 
Swift’s, where the big boys are, they’re beggars at 
setting lines, and ’ll put you up to a wrinkle or two 
for catching the five-pounders.” Tom was nearest 
to the keeper, and that officer, who was getting an- 
gry at the chaff, fixed his eyes on our hero, as if to 
take a note of him for future use. Tom returned his 
gaze with a steady stare, and then broke into a laugh, 
and struck into the middle of a favourite School- 
house song — 

As I and my companions 
Were setting of a snare. 

The gamekeeper was watching us. 

For him we did not care : 


CHAFFING A KEEPER. 


191 


For we can wrestle and fight, my boys, 

And jump out anywhere. 

For it’s my delight of a likely night, 

In the season of the year. 

The chorus was taken up by the other boys with 
shouts of laughter, and the keeper turned away with 
a grunt, but evidently bent on mischief. The boys 
thought no more of the matter. 

But now came on the may-fly season ; the soft hazy 
summer weather lay sleepily along the rich meadows 
by Avon side, and the green and grey flies flickered 
with their graceful lazy up and down flight over the 
reeds and the water and the meadows, in myriads 
upon myriads. The may-flies must surely be the 
lotus-eaters of the ephemerae ; the happiest, laziest, 
carelessest fly that dances and dreams out his few hours 
of sunshiny life by English rivers. 

Every little pitiful coarse fish in the Avon was on 
the alert for the flies, and gorging his wretched car- 
case with hundreds daily, the gluttonous rogues ! and 
every lover of the gentle craft was out to avenge the 
poor may-flies. 

So one fine Thursday afternoon, Tom having bor- 
rowed East’s new rod, started by himself to the 
river. He fished for some time with small success^ 
not a fish would rise at him ; but, as he prowled 
along the bank, he was presently aware of mighty 
ones feeding in a pool on the opposite side, under 
the shade of a huge willow-tree. The stream was 
deep here, but some fifty yards below was a shallow, 
for which he made off hot-foot ; and forgetting land- 
lords, keepers, solemn prohibitions of the Doctor, 
and everything else, pulled up his trousers, plunged 
across, and in three minutes was creeping along on 
all fours towards the clump of willows. 

It isn’t often that great chub, or any other coarse 


192 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


fish are in earnest about anything, but just then they 
were thoroughly bent on feeding, and in half-an-hour 
Master Tom had deposited three thumping fellows at 
the foot of the giant willow. As he was baiting for 
a fourth pounder, and just going to throw in again, 
he became aware of a man coming up the bank not 
one hundred yards off. Another look told him that 
it was the under-keeper. Could he reach the shallow 
before him? No, not carrying his rod. Nothing 
for it but the tree : so Tom laid his bones to it, shin- 
ning up as fast as he could, and dragging up his rod 
after him. He had just time to reach and crouch 
along upon a huge branch some ten feet up, which 
stretched out over the river, when the keeper arrived 
at the clump. Tom’s heart beat fast as he came 
under the tree ; two steps more and he would have 
passed, when, as ill-luck would have it, the gleam on 
the scales of the dead fish caught his eye, and he 
made a dead point at the foot of the tree. He 
picked up the fish one by one ; his eye and touch 
told him that they had been alive and feeding within 
the hour. Tom crouched lower along the branch, 
and heard the keeper beating the clump. “ If I 
could only get the rod hidden,” thought he, and be- 
gan gently shifting it to get it alongside him ; “willow- 
trees don’t throw out straight hickory shoots twelve 
feet along, with no leaves, worse luck. ” Alas ! the 
keeper catches the rustle, and then a sight of the rod, 
and then of Tom’s hand and arm. 

“ Oh, be up ther’ be ’ee?” says he, running under 
the tree. “ Now you come down this minute.” 

“ Tree’d at last, ” thinks Tom, making no answer, 
and keeping as close as possible, but working away 
at the rod, which he takes to pieces: “ I’m in for it, 
unless I can starve him out. ” And then he begins 


THE RETURN MATCH. 


193 


to meditate getting along the branch for a plunge 
and scramble to the other side; but the small 
branches are so thick, and the opposite bank so 
difficult, that the keeper will have lots of time to get 
round by the ford before he can get out, so he gives 
that up. And now he hears the keeper beginning to 
scramble up the trunk. That will never do ; so he 
scrambles himself back to where his branch joins .the 
trunk, and stands with lifted rod. 

“ Hullo, Velveteens, mind your fingers if you 
come any higher.” 

The keeper stops and looks up, and then with a 
grin says, ‘‘ Oh ! be you, be it, young measter ? Well, 
here’s luck. Now I tells ’ee to come down at once, 
and ’t’ll be best for ’ee.” 

Thank’ee, Velveteens, I’m very comfortable,” 
said Tom, shortening the rod in his hand, and pre- 
paring for battle. 

^‘Werry well, please yourself,” says the keeper, 
descending however to the ground again, and tak- 
ing his seat on the bank; ‘‘I bean’t in no hurry, so 
you med take your time. I’ll larn 'ee to gee honest 
folk names afore I’ve done with ’ee.” 

“ My luck as usual,” thinks Tom ; “ what a fool 
I was to give him a black. If I’d called him * keeper ’ 
now I might get off. The return match is all his way.” 

The keeper quietly proceeded to take out his pipe, 
fill, and light it, keeping an eye on Tom, who now 
sat disconsolately across the branch, looking at 
keeper — a pitiful sight for men and fishes. The 
more he thought of it the less he liked it. It must 
be getting near second calling-over,” thinks he. 
Keeper smokes on stolidly. *‘If he takes me up, I 
shall be flogged safe enough. I can’t sit here all 
night. Wonder if he’ll rise at silver.” 

13 


194 


TOM BT OWN’S SCHOOL DAYS. 


I say, keeper,” said he meekly, ‘Met me go for 
two bob ? ’ ’ 

“Not for twenty neither,” grunts his persecutor. 

And so they sat on till long past second calling- 
over, and the sun came slanting in through the wil- 
low-branches, and telling of locking-up near at hand. 

“I’m coming down, keeper,” said Tom at last 
with a sigh, fairly tired out. “Now what are you 
going to do? ” 

“ Walk ’ee up to School, and give ’ee over to the 
Doctor; them’s my orders,” says Velveteens, knock- 
ing the ashes out of his fourth pipe, and standing up 
and shaking himself. 

“Very good,” said Tom; “but hands off, you 
know. I’ll go with you quietly, so no collaring or 
that sort of thing.” 

Keeper looked at him a minute — “ Werry good,” 
said he at last ; and so Tom descended, and wended 
his way drearily by the side of the keeper up to the 
School-house, where they arrived just at locking-up. 
As they passed the School-gates, the Tadpole and 
several others who were standing there caught the 
state of things, and rushed out, crying “Rescue ! ” 
but Tom shook his head, so they only followed to 
the Doctor’s gate, and went back sorely puzzled. 

How changed and stern the Doctor seemed from 
the last time that Tom was up there, as the keeper 
told the story, not omitting to state how Tom had called 
him blackguard names. “ Indeed, sir,” broke in the 
culprit, “it was only Velveteens.” The Doctor only 
asked one question. 

“You know the rule about the banks. Brown ? ” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ Then wait for me to-morrow, after first lesson.” 

“I thought so,” muttered Tom. 


MO/^E SCRAPES. 


195 


And about the rod, sir?" went on the keeper; 
“ Master’s told we as we might have all the rods — " 

“Oh, please, sir," broke in Tom, “the rod isn’t 
mine." The Doctor looked puzzled, but the keeper, 
who was a good-hearted fellow, and melted at Tom’s 
evident distress, gave up his claim. Tom was flogged 
next morning, and a few days afterwards met Vel- 
veteens, and presented him with half-a-crown for 
giving up the rod claim, and they became sworn 
friends; and I regret to say that Tom had many- 
more fish from under the willow that may-fly season,, 
and was never caught again by Velveteens. 

It wasn’t three weeks before Tom, and now East 
by his side, were again in the awful presence. This 
time, however, the Doctor was not so terrible. A 
few days before, they had been fagged at fives ta 
fetch the balls that went off the court. While standing 
watching the game, they saw five or six nearly new 
balls hit on the top of the School. “I say, Tom," 
said East, when they were dismissed, “couldn’t we 
get those balls somehow?" 

“ Let’s try, anyhow." 

So they reconnoitred the walls carefully, borrowed 
a coal-hammer from old Stumps, bought some big 
nails, and after one or two attempts, scaled the 
Schools, and possessed themselves of huge quantities 
of fives’ -balls. The place pleased them so much 
that they spent all their spare time there, scratching- 
and cutting their names on the top of every tower ; 
and at last, having exhausted all other places, finished 
up with inscribing H. East, T. Brown, on the 
minute-hand of the great clock. In the doing of 
which they held the minute-hand, and disturbed the 
clock’s economy. So next morning, when masters 
and boys came trooping down to prayers, and 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


196 

entered the quadrangle, the injured minute-hand was 
indicating three minutes to the hour. They all 
pulled up, and took their time. When the hour 
struck, doors were closed, and half the school late. 
Thomas being sent to make inquiry, discovers their 
names on the minute-hand, and reports accordingly ; 
and they are sent for, a knot of their friends making 
derisive and pantomimic allusions to what their fate 
will be, as they walk off. 

But the Doctor, after hearing their story, doesn’t 
make much of it, and only gives them thirty lines of 
Homer to learn by heart, and a lecture on the like- 
lihood of such exploits ending in broken bones. 

Alas ! almost the next day was one of the great 
fairs in the town ; and as several rows and other dis- 
agreeable accidents had of late taken place on these 
occasions, the Doctor gives out, after prayers in the 
morning, that no boy is to go down into the town. 
Wherefore East and Tom, for no earthly pleasure 
except that of doing what they are told not to do, 
start away, after second lesson, and making a short 
circuit through the fields, strike a back lane which 
leads into the town, go down it, and run plump upon 
one of the masters as they emerge into the High 
Street. The master in question, though a very 
clever, is not a righteous man : he has already caught 
several of his own pupils, and gives them lines to 
learn, while he sends East and Tom, who are not his 
pupils, up to the Doctor ; who, on learning that they 
had been at prayers in the morning, flogs them 
soundly. 

The flogging did them no good at the time, for 
the injustice of their captor was rankling in their 
minds ; but it was just at the end of the half, and on 
the next evening but one Thomas knocks at their 


THE DOCTOR REIGNING. 


197 


door, and says the Doctor wants to see them. They 
look at one another in silent dismay. What can it 
be now? Which of their countless wrong-doings 
can he have heard of officially ? However, it is no 
use delaying, so up they go to the study. There 
they find the Doctor, not angry, but very grave. 
‘‘ He has sent for them to speak very seriously before 
they go home. They have each been flogged several 
times in the half-year for direct and wilful breaches 
of rules. This cannot go on. They are doing no 
good to themselves or others, and now they are get- 
ting up in the School, and have influence. They 
seem to think that rules are made capriciously, and 
for the pleasure of the masters ; but this is not so^ 
they are made for the good of the whole School, and 
must and shall be obeyed. Those who thoughtlessly 
or wilfully break them will not be allowed to stay 
at the School. He should be sorry if they had to 
leave, as the School might do them both much good, 
and wishes them to think very seriously in the holidays 
over what he has said. Good night.” 

And so the two hurry off horribly scared : the 
idea of having to leave has never crossed their 
minds, and is quite unbearable. 

As they go out, they meet at the door old Holmes, 
a sturdy cheery praepostor of another house, who 
goes in to the Doctor; and they hear his genial 
hearty greeting of the new-comer, so different to 
their own reception, as the door closes, and return 
to their study with heavy hearts, and tremendous 
resolves to break no more rules. 

Five minutes afterwards the master of their form, 
a late arrival and a model young master, knocks at 
the Doctor’s study-door. Come in ! ” and as he 
enters the Doctor goes on, to Holmes — ‘‘ you see I 


198 TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS, 

do not know anything of the case officially, and if 
I take any notice of it at all^ I must publicly expel 
the boy. I don’t wish to do that, for I think there 
is some good in him. There’s nothing for it but a 
good sound thrashing.” He paused to shake hands 
with the master, which Holmes does also, and then 
prepares to leave. 

I understand. Good night, sir.” 

“Good night. Holmes. And remember,” added 
the Doctor, emphasizing the words, “ a good sound 
thrashing before the whole house.” 

The door closed on Holmes; and the Doctor, in 
answer to the puzzled look of his lieutenant, 
explained shortly. “A gross case of bullying. 
Wharton, the head of the house, is a very good 
fellow, but slight and weak, and severe physical pain 
is the only way to deal with such a case ; so I have 
asked Holmes to take it up. He is very careful and 
trustworthy, and has plenty of strength. I wish all 
the sixth had as much. We must have it here, if we 
are to keep order at all.” 

Now I don’t want any wiseacres to read this book ; 
but if they should, of course they will prick up their 
long ears, and howl, or rather bray, at the above 
story. Very good, I don’t object; but what I have 
to add for you boys is this : that Holmes called a 
levy of his house after breakfast next morning, made 
them a speech on the case of bullying in question, 
and then gave the bully a “ good sound thrashing ; ” 
and that years afterwards, that boy sought out 
Holmes, |and thanked him, saying it had been the 
kindest act which had ever been done upon him, and 
the turning-point in his character ; and a very good 
fellow he became, and a credit to his School. 

After some other talk between them, the Doctor 


THE DOCTOR REIGNING. 


199 


said, ‘*Iwant to speak to you about two boys in 
your form, East and Brown : I have just been speak- 
ing to them. What do you think of them ? ” 

“ Well, they are not hard workers, and very 
thoughtless and full of spirits — but I can’t help 
liking them. I think they are sound good fellows 
at the bottom.” 

I’m glad of it. I think so too. But they make 
me very uneasy. They are taking the lead a good 
deal amongst the fags in my house, for they are very 
active, bold fellows. I should be sorry to lose them, 
but I shan’t let them stay if I don’t see them gaining 
character and manliness. In another year they may 
do great harm to all the younger boys.” 

“Oh, I hope you won’t send them away, ’’.pleaded 
their master. 

“ Not if I can help it. But now I never feel sure, 
after any half-holiday, that I shan’t have to flog one 
of them next morning, for some foolish, thoughtless 
scrape. I quite dread seeing either of them.” 

They were both silent for a minute. Presently 
the Doctor began again : — 

“ They don’t feel that they have any duty or work 
to do in the School, and how is one to make them 
feel it?” 

“ I think if either of them had some little boy to 
take care of, it would steady them. Brown is the 
most reckless of the two, I should say; East wouldn’t 
get into so many scrapes without him.” 

“ Well,” said the Doctor, with something like a 
sigh, “I’ll think of it.” And they went on to talk 
of other subjects. 



TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL DAYS, 


L 


PART II. 


( 201 ) 


I [hold] it truth, with him who sings 
To one clear harp in divers tones, 

That men may rise on stepping-stones 
Of their dead selves to higher things.” 

Tennyson. 


(202) 


WHO^S COME BACKi 


203 


CHAPTER 1 . 

HOW THE TIDE TURNED. 

T he turning-point in our hero’s school career had 
now come, and the manner of it was as follows. 
On the evening of the first day of the next 
half-year, Tom, East, and another School-house boy, 
who had just been dropped at the Spread Eagle by 
the old Regulator, rushed into the matron’s room in 
high spirits, such as all real boys are in when they 
first get back, however fond they may be of home. 

“Well, Mrs. Wixie,” shouted one, seizing on the 
methodical, active little dark-eyed woman, who was 
busy stowing away the linen of the boys who had 
already arrived into their several pigeon-holes, 
“ here we are again, you see, as jolly as ever. Let 
us help you put the things away.” 

“And, Mary,” cried another (she was called 
indifferently by either name), “ who’s come back ? 
Has the Doctor made old Jones leave ? How many 
new boys are there? ” 

“Am I and East to have Gray’s study? You 
know you promised to get it for us if you could,” 
shouted Tom. 

“ And am I to sleep in Number 4? ” roared East. 
“ How’s old Sam, and Bogle, and Sally? ” 

“ Bless the boys ! ” cries Mary, at last getting in a 
word, “ why, you’ll shake me to death. There now, 
do go away up to the housekeeper’s room and get 
your suppers; you know I haven’t time to talk — 


204 


TOM BROIVN^S SCHOOL DAYS. 


you’ll find plenty more in the house. Now, Master 
East, do let those things alone — you’re mixing up 
three new boys’ things.” And she rushed at East, 
who escaped round the open trunks holding up a 
prize. 

Hullo, look here. Tommy,” shouted he, here’s 
fun ! ” and he brandished above his head some pretty 
little night-caps, beautifully made and marked, the 
work of loving fingers in some distant country home. 
The kind mother and sisters, who sewed that delicate 
stitching with aching hearts, little thought of the 
trouble they might be bringing on the young head for 
which they were meant. The little matron was 
wiser, and snatched the caps from East before he 
could look at the name on them. 

Now, Master East, I shall be very angry if you 
don’t go,” said she; there’s some capital cold 
beef and pickles up-stairs, and I won’t have you old 
boys in my room first night.” 

Hurrah for the pickles ! Come along. Tommy ; 
come along. Smith. We shall find out who the young 
Count is. I’ll be bound : I hope he’ll sleep in my 
room. Mary’s always vicious first week.” 

As the boys turned to leave the room, the matron 
touched Tom’s arm, and said, Master Brown, 
please stop a minute, I want to speak to you.” 

‘‘Very well, Mary. I’ll come in a minute : East, 
don’t finish the pickles — ” 

“Oh, Master Brown,” went on the little matron, 
when the rest had gone, “ you’re to have Gray’s 
study, Mrs. Arnold says. And she wants you to 
take in this young gentleman. He’s a new boy, and 
thirteen years old, though he don’t look it. He’s 
very delicate, and has never been from home before. 
And I told Mrs. Arnold I thought you’d be kind to 


THE SADDLE IS PUT ON TOM. 


205 


him, and see that they don’t bully him at first. 
He’s put into your form, and I’ve given him the bed 
next to yours in Number 4 ; so East can’t sleep there 
this half.” 

Tom was rather put about by this speech. He 
had got the double study which he coveted, but 
here were conditions attached which greatly moder- 
ated his joy. He looked across the room, and in 
the far corner of the sofa was aware of a slight pale 
boy, with large blue eyes and light fair hair, who 
seemed ready to shrink through the floor. He saw 
at a glance that the little stranger was just the boy 
whose first half-year at a public school would be 
misery to himself if he were left alone, or constant 
anxiety to any one who meant to see him through 
his troubles. Tom was too honest to take in the 
youngster and then let him shift for himself ; and if 
he took him as his chum instead of East, where were 
all his pet plans of having a bottled-beer cellar 
under his window, and making night-lines and 
slings, and plotting expeditions to Brownsover Mills 
and Caldecott’s Spinney ? East and he had made 
up their minds to get this study, and then every 
night from locking-up till ten they would be 
together to talk about fishing, drink bottled-beer, 
read Marryat’s novels, and sort birds’ eggs. And 
this new boy would most likely never go out of the 
close, and would be afraid of wet feet, and always 
getting laughed at and called Molly, or Jenny, or 
some derogatory feminine nickname. 

The matron watched him for a moment, and saw 
what was passing in his mind, and so, like a wise 
negotiator, threw in an appeal to his warm heart. 
“Poor little fellow,” said she in almost a whisper, “ his 
father’s dead, and he’s got no brothers. And his 


2o6 tom BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 

mamma, such a kind sweet lady, almost broke her 
heart at leaving him this morning; and she said one 
of his sisters was like to die of decline, and so ” 

“Well, well,” burst in Tom, with something like 
a sigh at the effort, “ I suppose I must give up East. 
Come along, young un. Wliat’s your name ? We’ll 
go and have some supper, and then I’ll show you 
our study.” 

“His name’s George Arthur,” said the matron, 
walking up to him with Tom, who grasped his little 
delicate hand as the proper preliminary to making a 
chum of him, and felt as if he could have blown him 
away. “I’ve had his books and things put into the 
study, which his mamma has had new papered, and 
the sofa covered, and new green-baize curtains over 
the door ” (the diplomatic matron threw this in, to 
show that the new boy was contributing largely to 
the partnership comforts). “ And Mrs. Arnold told 
me to say,” she added, “ that she should like you 
both to come up to tea with her. You know the 
way, Master Brown, and the things are just gone up, 
I know.” 

Here was an announcement for Master Tom ! He 
was to go up to tea the first night, just as if he were 
a sixth or fifth-form boy, and of importance in the 
school world, instead of the most reckless young 
scapegrace amongst the fags. He felt himself lifted 
on to a higher social and moral platform at once. 
Nevertheless, he couldn’t give up without a sigh the 
idea of the jolly supper in the housekeeper’s room 
with East and the rest, and a rush round to all 
the studies of his friends afterwards, to pour out 
the deeds and wonders of the holidays, to plot 
fifty plans for the coming half-year, and to gather 
news of who had left, and what new boys had come, 


TEA WITH THE DOCTOR. 


207 


who had got whose study, and where the new praepos- 
tors slept. However, Tom consoled himself with 
thinking that he couldn’t have done all this with the 
new boy at his heels, and so marched off along the 
passages to the Doctor’s private house with his young 
charge in tow, in monstrous good humour with him- 
self and all the world. 

It is needless, and would be impertinent, to tell 
how the two young boys were received in that drawing- 
room. The lady who presided there is still living, 
and has carried with her to her peaceful home in the 
North the respect and love of all those who ever felt 
and shared that gentle and high-bred hospitality. 
Ay, many is the brave heart now doing its work and 
bearing its load in country curacies, London cham- 
bers, under the Indian sun, and in Australian towns 
and clearings, which looks back with fond and grate- 
ful memory to that School-house drawing-room, and 
dates much of its highest and best training to the 
lessons learnt there. 

Besides Mrs. Arnold and one or two of the elder 
children, there were one of the younger masters, 
young Brooke — who was now in the sixth, and had 
succeeded to his brother’s position and influence — 
and another sixth-form boy there, talking together 
before the fire. The master and young Brooke, now 
a great strapping fellow six feet high, eighteen years 
old, and powerful as a coal-heaver, nodded kindly to 
Tom, to his intense glory, and then went on talking ; 
the other did not notice them. The hostess, after a 
few kind words, which led the boys at once and in- 
sensibly to feel at their ease, and to begin talking to 
one another, left them with her own children while 
she finished a letter. The young ones got on fast and 
well, Tom holding forth about a prodigious pony he 


2o8 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


had been riding out hunting, and hearing stories of 
the winter glories of the lakes, when tea came in, 
and immediately after the Doctor himself. 

How frank, and kind, and manly, was his greet- 
ing to the party by the fire ! It did Tom’s heart 
good to see him and young Brooke shake hands, and 
look one another in the face; and he didn’t fail to 
remark, that Brooke was nearly as tall, and quite as 
broad as the Doctor. And his cup was full, when in 
another moment his master turned to him with another 
warm shake of the hand, and, seemingly oblivious 
of all the late scrapes which he had been getting 
into, said, “ Ah, Brown, you here ! I hope you 
left your father and all well at home? ” 

‘‘Yes, sir, quite well.” 

“And this is the little fellow who is to share 
your study. Well, he doesn’t look as we should like 
to see him. He wants some Rugby air, and cricket. 
And you must take him some good long walks, to 
Bilton Grange and Caldecott’s Spinney, and show 
him what a little pretty country we have about 
here.” 

Tom wondered if the Doctor knew that his visits 
to Bilton Grange were for the purpose of taking 
rooks’ nests (a proceeding strongly discountenanced 
by the owner thereof), and those to Caldecott’s 
Spinney were prompted chiefly by the conveniences 
for setting night-lines. What didn’t the Doctor 
know ? And what a noble use he always made of it ! 
He almost resolved to abjure rook-pies and night- 
lines forever. The tea went merrily off, the Doctor 
now talking of holiday doings, and then of the pros- 
pects of the half-year, what chance there was for the 
Balliol scholarship, whether the eleven would be a 
good one. Every body was at his ease, and every 


ARTHUR'S DEBUT. 


209 


body felt that he, young as he might be, was of 
some use in the little school world, and had a work 
to do there. 

Soon after tea the Doctor went off to his study, 
and the young boys a few minutes afterwards took 
their leave, and went out of the private door which 
led from the Doctor’s house into the middle pas- 
sage. 

At the fire, at the further end of the passage, was 
a crowd of boys in loud talk and laughter. There 
was a sudden pause when the door opened, and 
then a great shout of greeting, as Tom was recog- 
nized marching down the passage. 

Hullo, Brown, where do you come from?” 

“ Oh, I’ve been to tea with the Doctor,” says Tom, 
with great dignity. 

‘‘My eye !” cried East. Oh ! so that’s why 
Mary called you back, and you didn’t come to 
supper. You lost something — that beef and pickles 
was no end good.” 

“I say, young fellow,” cried Hall, detecting Ar- 
thur, and catching him by the collar, “ What’s your 
name? Where do you come from? How old are 
you ? ” 

Tom saw Arthur shrink back, and look scared as 
all the group turned to him, but thought it best to 
let him answer, just standing by his side to support 
in case of need. 

“ Arthur, sir. I come from Devonshire.” 

“ Don’t call me ‘ sir,’ you young muff. How old 
are you ? ” 

“ Thirteen.” 

“ Can you sing? ” 

The poor boy was trembling and hesitating. Tom 
struck in — “You be hanged, Tadpole. He’ll have 
14 


210 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


to sing, whether he can or not, Saturday twelve 
weeks, and that’s long enough off yet.” 

Do you know him at home. Brown ? ” 

No ; but he’s my chum in Gray’s old study, and 
it’s near prayer time, and I haven’t had a look at 
it yet. Come along, Arthur.” 

Away went the two, Tom longing to get his 
charge safe under cover, where he might advise him 
on his deportment. 

What a queer chum for Tom Brown,” was the 
comment at the fire ; and it must be confessed so 
thought Tom himself, as he lighted his candle, and 
surveyed the new green-baize curtains and the car- 
pet and sofa with much satisfaction. 

I say, Arthur, what a brick your mother is to 
make us so cosy. But look here now, you must an- 
swer straight up when the fellows speak to you, and 
don’t be afraid. If you’re afraid, you’ll get bullied. 
And don’t you say you can sing ; and don’t you ever 
talk about home, or your mother and sisters.” 

Poor little Arthur looked ready to cry. 

^‘But please,” said he, ^‘mayn’t I talk about — 
about home to you?” 

Oh yes, I like it. But don’t talk to boys you 
don’t know, or they’ll call you home-sick, or mam- 
ma’s darling, or some such stuff. What a jolly desk ! 
Is that yours ? And what stunning binding ! why, 
your school-books look like novels ! ” 

And Tom was soon deep in Arthur’s goods and 
chattels, all new and good enough for a fifth-form 
boy, and hardly thought of his friends outside, till 
the prayer-bell rung. 

I have already described the School-house prayers ; 
they were the same on the first night as on the other 
nights, save for the gaps caused by the absence of 


ARTHUR'S DEBUT. 


2II 


those boys who came late, and the line of new boys 
who stood all together at the further table — of all 
sorts and sizes, like young bears with all their troubles 
to come, as Tom’s father had said to him when he 
was in the same position. He thought of it as he 
looked at the line, and poor little slight Arthur 
standing with them, and as he was leading him up- 
stairs to Number 4, directly after prayers, and show- 
ing him his bed. It was a huge high airy room, 
with two large windows looking on to the School 
close. There were twelve beds in the room. The 
one in the furthest corner by the fire-place, occupied 
by the sixth-form boy who was responsible for the 
discipline of the room, and the rest by boys in the 
lower-fifth and other junior forms, all fags (for the 
fifth-form boys, as has been said, slept in rooms by 
themselves). Being fags, the eldest of them was not 
more than about sixteen years old, and were all 
bound to be^upand in bed by ten ; the sixth-form 
boys came to bed from ten to a quarter-past (at which 
time the old verger came round to put the candles 
out), except when they sat up to read. 

Within a few minutes therefore of their entry, all 
the other boys who slept in Number 4 had come up. 
The little fellows went quietly to their own beds, and 
began undressing and talking to each other in whis- 
pers ; while the elder, amongst whom was Tom, sat 
chatting about on one another’s beds, with their 
jackets and waistcoats off. Poor little Arthur was 
overwhelmed with the novelty of his position. The 
idea of sleeping in the room with strange boys had 
clearly never crossed his mind before, and was as 
painful as it was strange to him. He could hardly 
bear to take his jacket off ; however, presently, with 
an effort, off it came, and then he paused and looked 


212 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


at Tom, who was sitting at the bottom of his bed talk- 
ing and laughing. 

“ Please, Brown,” he whispered, may I wash my 
face and hands? ” 

“Of course, if you like,” said Tom, staring; 
“ that’s your washhand-stand, under the window, 
second from your bed. You’ll have to go down for 
more water in the morning if you use it all.” And 
on he went with his talk, while Arthur stole timidly 
from between the beds out to his washhand-stand, 
and began his ablutions, thereby drawing for a mo- 
ment on himself the attention of the room. 

On went the talk and laughter. Arthur finished 
his washing and undressing, and put on his night- 
gown. He then looked round more nervously than 
ever. Two or three of the little boys were already in 
bed, sitting up with their chins on their knees. The 
light burned clear, the noise went on. It was a try- 
ing moment for the poor little lonely boy ; however, 
this time he didn’t ask Tom what he might or might 
not do, but dropped on his knees by his bedside, as 
he had done every day from his childhood, to open 
his heart to Him who heareth the cry and beareth 
the sorrows of the tender child, and the strong man 
in agony. 

Tom was sitting at the bottom of his bed unlacing 
his boots, so that his back was towards Arthur, and 
he didn’t see what had happened, and looked up in 
wonder at the sudden silence. Then two or three 
boys laughed and sneered, and a big brutal fellow, 
who was standing in the middle of the room, picked 
up a slipper, and shied it at the kneeling boy, calling 
him a snivelling young shaver. Then Tom saw the 
whole, and the next moment the boot he had just 
pulled off flew straight at the head of the bully, who 


LESSON NO. I. 


213 

had just time to throw up his arm and catch it on 
his elbow. 

“ Confound you, Brown, what’s that for? ” roared 
he, stamping with pain. 

“Never mind what I mean,” said Tom, stepping 
on to the floor, every drop of blood in his body 
tingling; “if any fellow wants the other boot, he 
knows how to get it.” 

What would have been the result is doubtful, for 
at this moment the sixth-form boy came in, and not 
another word could be said. Tom and the rest 
rushed into bed and finished their unrobing there, 
and the old verger, as punctual as the clock, had put 
out the candle in another minute, and toddled on to 
the next room, shutting their door with his usual 
“Good night, genl’m’n.” 

There were many boys in the room by whom that 
little scene was taken to heart before they slept. But 
sleep seemed to have deserted the pillow of poor 
Tom. For some time his excitement, and the flood 
of memories which chased one another through his 
brain, kept him from thinking or resolving. His 
head throbbed, his heart leapt, and he could hardly 
keep himself from springing out of bed and rushing 
about the room. Then the thought of his own 
mother came across him, and the promise he had 
made at her knee, years ago, never to forget to kneel 
by his bedside, and give himself up to his Father, 
before he laid his head on the pillow, from which it 
might never rise ; and he lay down gently and cried 
as if his heart would break. He was only fourteen 
years old. 

It was no light act of courage in those days, my 
dear boys, for a little fellow to say his prayers 
publicly, even at Rugby. A few years later, when 


214 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


Arnold’s manly piety had begun to leaven the 
School the tables turned ; before he died, in the 
School-house at least, and I believe in the other 
houses, the rule was the other way. But poor Tom 
had come to school in other times. The first few 
nights after he came he did not kneel down because 
of the noise, but sat up in bed till the candle was 
out, and then stole out and said his prayers in fear, 
lest some one should find him out. So did many 
another poor little fellow. Then he began to think 
that he might just as well say his prayers in bed, and 
then that it didn’t matter whether he was kneeling, 
or sitting, or lying down. And so it had come to 
pass with Tom as with all who will not confess their 
Lord before men ; and for the last year he had 
probably not said his prayers in earnest a dozen 
times. 

Poor Tom ! the first and bitte?*est feeling which 
was like to break his heart was the sense of his own 
cowardice. The vice of all others which he loathed 
was brought in and burned in on his own soul. He 
had lied to his mother, to his conscience, to his 
God. How could he bear it ? And then the poor 
little weak boy, whom he had pitied and almost 
scorned for his weakness, had done that which he, 
braggart as he was, dared not do. The first dawn of 
comfort came to him in swearing to himself that he 
would stand by that boy through thick and thin, and 
cheer him, and help him, and bear his burdens, for 
the good deed done that night. Then he resolved 
to write home next day and tell his mother all, and 
what a coward her son had been. And then peace 
came to him as he resolved, lastly, to bear his testi- 
mony next morning. The morning would be harder 
than the night to begin with, but he felt that he 


TOM LEARNS HIS LESSON. 


215 


could not afford to let one chance slip. Several 
times he faltered, for the devil showed him, first, all 
his old friends calling him “Saint” and “Square- 
toes,” and a dozen hard names, and whispered to 
him that his motives would be misunderstood, and 
he would only be left alone with the new boy; 
whereas it was his duty to keep all means of influence, 
that he might do good to the largest number. And 
then came the more subtle temptation, “ Shall I not 
be showing myself braver than others by doing this? 
Have I any right to begin it now ? Ought I not rather 
to pray in my own study, letting other boys know 
that I do so, and trying to lead them to it, while in 
public at least I should go on as I have done?” 
However, his good angel was too strong that night, 
and he turned on his side and slept, tired of trying 
to reason, but resolved to follow the impulse which 
had been so strong, and in which he had found 
peace. 

Next morning he was up and washed and dressed, 
all but his jacket and waistcoat, just as the ten 
minutes’ bell began to ring, and then in the face of 
the whole room knelt down to pray. Not five words 
could he say — the bell mocked him ; he was listen- 
ing for every whisper in the room — what were they 
all thinking of him? He was ashamed to go on 
kneeling, ashamed to rise from his knees. At last, 
as it were from his inmost heart, a still small voice 
seemed to breathe forth the words of the publican, 
“ God be merciful to me a sinner! ” He repeated 
them over and over, clinging to them as for his life, 
and rose from his knees comforted and humbled, and 
ready to face the whole world. It was not needed : 
two other boys besides Arthur had already followed 
his example, and he went down to the great School 


2i6 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


with a glimmering of another lesson in his heart — 
the lesson that he who has conquered his own coward 
spirit has conquered the whole outward world ; and 
that other one which the old prophet learnt in the 
cave in Mount Horeb, when he hid his face, and the 
still small voice asked, “ What doest thou here, 
Elijah?” that however we may fancy ourselves alone 
on the side of good, the King and Lord of men is 
nowhere without His witnesses ; for in every society, 
however seemingly corrupt and godless, there are 
those who have not bowed the knee to Baal. 

He found too how greatly he had exaggerated the 
effect to be produced by his act. For a few nights 
there was a sneer or a laugh when he knelt down, 
but this passed off soon, and one by one all the 
other boys but three or four followed the lead. I 
fear that this was in some measure owing to the 
fact, that Tom could probably have thrashed any 
boy in the room except the praepostor ; at any rate, 
every boy knew that he would try upon very slight 
provocation, and didn’t choose to run the risk of a 
hard fight because Tom Brown had taken a fancy to 
say his prayers. Some of the small boys of Number 
4 communicated the new state of things to their 
chums, and in several other rooms the poor little 
fellows tried it on ; in one instance or so where the 
praepostor heard of it and interfered very decidedly, 
with partial success ; but in the rest, after a short 
struggle, the confessors were bullied or laughed 
down, and the old state of things went on for some 
time longer. Before either Tom Brown or Arthur 
left the School-house, there was no room in which it 
had not become the regular custom. I trust it is so 
still, and that the old heathen state of things has 
gone out for ever. 


TOM'S TRIALS. 


217 


CHAPTER II. 

THE NEW BOY. 

I DO not mean to recount all the little troubles and 
annoyances which thronged upon Tom at the 
beginning of this half-year, in his new character of 
bear-leader to a gentle little boy straight from home. 
He seemed to himself to have become a new boy 
again, without any of the long-suffering and meek- 
ness indispensable for supporting that character with 
moderate success. From morning till night he had 
the feeling of responsibility on his mind ; and even if 
he left Arthur in their study or in the close for an 
hour, was never at ease till he had him in sight again. 
He waited for him at the doors of the school after 
every lesson and every calling-over ; watched that no 
tricks were played him, and none but the regulation 
questions asked ; kept his eye on his plate at dinner 
and breakfast, to see that no unfair depredations 
were made upon his viands ; in short, as East re- 
marked, cackled after him like a hen with one chick. 

Arthur took a long time thawing too, which made 
it all the harder work ; was sadly timid ; scarcely 
ever spoke unless Tom spoke to him first ; and, worst 
of all, would agree with him in everything, the 
hardest thing in the world for a Brown to bear. 
He got quite angry sometimes, as they sat together 
of a night in their study, at this provoking habit of 
agreement, and was on the point of breaking out a 
dozen times with a lecture upon the propriety of a 
fellow having a will of his own and speaking out ; but 
managed to restrain himself by the thought that it 
might only frighten Arthur, and the remembrance 


2i8 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


of the lesson he had learnt from him on his first night 
at Number 4. Then he would resolve to sit still, 
and not say a word till Arthur began ; but he was 
always beat at that game, and had presently to begin 
talking in despair, fearing lest Arthur might think 
he was vexed at something if he didn’t, and dog- 
tired of sitting tongue-tied. 

It was hard work ! But Tom had taken it up, and 
meant to stick to it, and go through with it, so as to 
satisfy himself; in which resolution he was much 
assisted by the chaffing of East and his other old 
friends, who began to call him ^‘dry-nurse,” and 
otherwise to break their small wit on him. But 
when they took other ground, as they did every now 
and then, Tom was sorely puzzled. 

“Tell you what. Tommy,” East would say, 
“ you’ll spoil young Hopeful with too much cod- 
dling. Why can’t you let him go about by himself 
and find his own level? He’ll never be worth a 
button, if you go on keeping him under your skirts.” 

“Well, but he ain’t fit to fight his own way yet; 
I’m trying to get him to it every day — but he’s very 
odd. Poor little beggar! I can’t make him out a 
bit. He ain’t a bit like anything I’ve ever seen or 
heard of — he seems all over nerves ; anything you 
say seems to hurt him like a cut ora blow.” 

“That sort of boy’s no use here,” said East, 
“he’ll only spoil. Now, I’ll tell you what to do. 
Tommy. Go and get a nice large band-box made, 
and put him in with plenty of cotton wool, and a 
pap-bottle, labelled ‘With care — this side up,’ and 
send him back to mamma.” 

“ I think I shall make a hand of him though,” 
said Tom, smiling, “say what you will. There’s 
something about him, every now and then, which 


AN EPISODE. 


219 


shows me he’s got pluck somewhere in him. That’s 
the only thing after all that’ll wash, ain’t it, old 
Scud ? But how to get at it and bring it out ? ” 

Tom took one hand out of his breeches-pocket and 
stuck it in his back hair for a scratch, giving his hat 
a tilt over his nose, his one method of invoking wis- 
dom. He stared at the ground with a ludicrously 
puzzled look, and presently looked up and met 
East’s eyes. That young gentleman slapped him on 
the back, and then put his arm round his shoulder, 
as they strolled through the quadrangle together. 
‘‘Tom,” said he, “blest if you ain’t the best old 
fellow ever was — I do like to see you go into a thing. 
Hang it, I wish I could take things as you do — but I 
never can get higher than a joke. Everything’s a 
joke. If I was going to be flogged next minute, I 
should be in a blue funk, but I couldn’t help laughing 
at it for the life of me. ’ ’ 

“Brown and East, you go and fag for Jones on 
the great fives’-court.” 

“ Hullo, though, that’s past a joke,” broke out 
East, springing at the young gentleman who ad- 
dressed them, and catching him by the collar. 
“ Here, Tommy, catch hold of him t’other side 
before he can holla.” 

The youth was seized, and dragged struggling out 
of the quadrangle into the School-house hall. He 
was one of the miserable little pretty white-handed 
curly-headed boys, petted and pampered by some of 
the big fellows, who wrote their verses for them, 
taught them to drink and use bad language, and did 
all they could to spoil them for everything * in this 

*A kind and wise critic, an old Rugboean, notes here in the margin : 
The “small friend system was not so utterly bad from 1841-1847.’' Before 
that, too, there were many noble friendships between big and little boys, 
but I can’t strike out the passage ; many boys will kuow why it is left in. 


220 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


world and the next. One of the avocations in which 
these young gentlemen took particular delight, was 
in going about and getting fags for their protectors, 
when those heroes were playing any game. They 
carried about pencil and paper with them, putting 
down the names of all the boys they sent, always 
sending five times as many as were wanted, and get- 
ting all those thrashed who didn’t go. The present 
youth belonged to a house which was very jealous of 
the School-house, and always picked out School- 
house fags when he could find them. However, this 
time he’d got the wrong sow by the ear. His cap- 
tors slammed the great door of the hall, and East 
put his back against it, while Tom gave the prisoner 
a shake-up, took away his list, and stood him up on 
the floor, while he proceeded leisurely to examine 
that document. 

“ Let me out, let me go ! ” screamed the boy in a 
furious passion. “I’ll go and tell Jones this minute, 

and he’ll give you both the thrashing you ever 

had.” 

“ Pretty little dear,” said East, patting the top 
of his hat; “hark how he swears, Tom. Nicely 
brought up young man, ain’t he, I don’t think.” 

“ Let me alone, you,” roared the boy, foam- 

ing with rage, and kicking at East, who quietly 
tripped him up, and deposited him on the floor in a 
place of safety. 

“Gently, young fellow,” said he; ’taint im- 
proving for little whippersnappers like you to be in- 
dulging in blasphemy ; so you stop that, or you’ll 
get something you won’t like.” 

I’ll have you both licked when I get out, that I 
will,” rejoined the boy, beginning to snivel. 

‘‘Two can play at that game, mind you,” said 


AN EPISODE. 


221 


Tom, who had finished his examination of the list. 

Now you just listen here. We’ve just come across 
the fives’-court, and Jones has four fags there already, 
two more than he wants. If he’d wanted us to 
change, he’d have stopped us himself. And here, 
you little blackguard, you’ve got seven names down 
on your list besides ours, and five of them School- 
house.” Tom walked up to him and jerked him on 
to his legs ; he was by this time whining like a 
whipped puppy. 

“ Now just listen tome. We ain’t going to fag 
for Jones. If you tell him you’ve sent us, we’ll each 
of us give you such a thrashing as you’ll remember.” 
And Tom tore up the list and threw the pieces into 
the fire. 

“And mind you too,” said East, “don’t let me 
catch you again sneaking about the School-house, 
and picking up our fags. You haven’t got the sort 
of hide to take a sound licking kindly;” and he 
opened the door and sent the young gentleman 
flying into the quadrangle, with a parting kick. 

“Nice boy. Tommy,” said East, shoving his 
hands in his pockets and strolling to the fire. 

“ Worst sort we breed,” responded Tom, following 
his example. “ Thank goodness, no big fellow ever 
took to petting me.” 

“You’d never have been like that,” said East. 
“ I should like to have put him in a museum ; — 
Christian young gentleman, nineteenth century, 
highly educated. Stir him up with a long pole. 
Jack, and hear him swear like a drunken sailor ! — 
He’d make a respectable public open its eyes, I 
think.” 

“ Think he’ll tell Jones? ” said Tom. 

“ No,” said East. “ Don’t care if he does.” 


222 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


Nor I,” said Tom. And they went back to talk 
about Arthur. 

The young gentleman had brains enough not to 
tell Jones, reasoning that East and Brown, who were 
noted as some of the toughest fags in the school, 
wouldn’t care three straws for any licking Jones 
might give them, and would be likely to keep their 
words as to passing it on with interest. 

After the above conversation, East came a good 
deal to their study, and took notice of Arthur ; and 
soon allowed to Tom that he was a thorough little 
gentleman, and would get over his shyness all in 
good time ; which much comforted our hero. He 
felt every day, too, the value of having an object in 
his life, something that drew him out of himself; 
and, it being the dull time of the year, and no 
games going about which he much cared, was 
happier than he had ever yet been at school, which 
was saying a great deal. 

The time which Tom allowed himself away from 
his charge, was from locking-up till supper-time. 
During this hour or hour-and-half he used to take 
his fling, going round to the studies of all his 
acquaintance, sparring or gossiping in the hall, now 
jumping the old iron-bound tables, or carving a bit 
of his name on them, then joining in some chorus 
of merry voices ; in fact, blowing off his steam, as 
we should now call it. 

This process was so congenial to his temper, and 
Arthur showed himself so pleased at the arrange- 
ment, that it was several weeks before Tom was ever 
in their study before supper. One evening, however, 
he rushed in to look for an old chisel, or some corks, 
or other articles essential to his pursuit for the time 
being, and while rummaging about in the cupboards. 


LESSON NO. 11. 


223 


looked up for a moment, and was caught at once by 
the figure of poor little Arthur. The boy was sit- 
ting with his elbows on the table, and his head lean- 
ing on his hands, and before him an open book, on 
which his tears were falling fast. Tom shut the door 
at once, and sat down on the sofa by Arthur, put- 
ting his arm round his neck. 

“ Why, young un ! what’s the matter?” said he, 
kindly; “you ain’t unhappy, are you?” 

“Oh no. Brown,” said the little boy, looking up 
with the great tears in his eyes, “you are so kind 
to me, I’m very happy.” 

“Why don’t you call me Tom? lots of boys do 
that I don’t like half so much as you. What are 
you reading, then ? Hang it, you must come about 
with me, and not mope yourself,” and Tom cast 
down his eyes on the book, and saw it was the Bible. 
He was silent for a minute, and thought to himself, 
“Lesson Number 2, Tom Brown ; ” — and then said 
gently — 

“I’m very glad to see this, Arthur, and ashamed 
that I don’t read the Bible more myself. Do you 
read it every night before supper while I’m out? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Well, I wish you’d wait till afterwards, and then 
we’d read together. But, Arthur, why does it make 
you cry ? ” 

“ Oh, it isn’t that I’m unhappy. But at home, 
while my father was alive, we always read the lessons 
after tea ; and I love to read them over now, and try 
to remember what he said about them. I can’t re- 
member all, and I think I scarcely understand a great 
deal of what I do remember. But it all comes back to 
me so fresh, that I can’t help crying sometimes to 
think I shall never read them again with him.” 


224 


TOM JBROWN^S SCHOOL DAYS. 


Arthur had never spoken of his home before, and 
Tom hadn’t encouraged him to do so, as his blunder- 
ing school-boy reasoning made him think that Ar- 
thur would be softened and less manly for thinking 
of home. But now he was fairly interested, and for- 
got all about chisels and bottled beer ; while with 
very little encouragement Arthur launched into his 
home history, and the prayer-bell put them both out 
sadly when it rang to call them to the hall. 

From this time Arthur constantly spoke of his 
home, and above all, of his father, who had been 
dead about a year, and whose memory Tom soon got to 
love and reverence almost as much as his own son did. 

Arthur’s father had been the clergyman of a parish 
in the Midland Counties, which had risen into a 
large town during the war, and upon which the hard 
years which followed had fallen with a fearful weight. 
The trade had been half ruined : and then came the 
old sad story, of masters reducing their establishments, 
men turned off and wandering about, hungry and 
wan in body and fierce in soul, from the thought of 
wives and children starving at home, and the last 
sticks of furniture going to the pawn-shop. Chil- 
dren taken from school, and lounging about the dirty 
streets and courts, too listless almost to play, and 
squalid in rags and misery. And then the fearful 
struggle between the employers and men ; lowerings 
of wages, strikes, and the long course of oft-repeated 
crime, ending every now and then with a riot, a fire, 
and the county yeomanry. There is no need here 
to dwell upon such tales ; the Englishman into whose 
soul they have not sunk deep is not worthy the name ; 
you English boys for whom this book is meant (God 
bless your bright faces and kind hearts !) will learn 
it all soon enough. 


ARTHURS S HOME, 


225 


Into such a parish and state of society, Arthur’s 
father had been thrown at the age of twenty-five, a 
young married parson, full of faith, hope, and love. 
He had battled with it like a man, and had lots of 
fine Utopian ideas about the perfectibility of man- 
kind, glorious humanity and such-like, knocked out 
of his head ; and a real wholesome Christian love for 
the poor struggling, sinning men, of whom he felt 
himself one, and with and for whom he spent fortune, 
and strength, and life, driven into his heart. He 
had battled like a man, and gotten a man’s reward. 
No silver teapots or salvers, with flowery inscriptions, 
setting forth his virtues and the appreciation of a 
genteel parish; no fat living or stall, for which he 
never looked, and didn’t care ; no sighs and praises 
of comfortable dowagers and well got-up young wo- 
men, who worked him slippers, sugared his tea, and 
adored him as ‘ a devoted man ; ’ but a manly re- 
spect, wrung from the unwilling souls of men who 
fancied his order their natural enemies ; the fear and 
hatred of every one who was false or unjust in the 
district, were he master or man ; and the blessed 
sight of women and children daily becoming more 
human and more homely, a comfort to themselves 
and to their husbands and fathers. 

These things of course took time, and had to be 
fought for with toil and sweat of brain and heart, 
and with the life-blood poured out. All that, Ar- 
thur had laid his account to give, and took as a mat- 
ter of course ; neither pitying himself, or looking on 
himself as a martyr, when he felt the wear and tear 
making him feel old before his time, and the stifling 
air of fever dens telling on his health. His wife sec- 
onded him in everything. She had been rather fond 
of society, and much admired and run after before 

15 


226 tom BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 

her marriage ; and the London world, to which she had 
belonged, pitied poor Fanny Evelyn when she mar- 
ried the young clergyman and went to settle in that 
smoky hole Turley, a very nest of Chartism and Athe- 
ism, in a part of the county which all the decent 
families had had to leave for years. However, some- 
how or other she didn’t seem to care. If her hus- 
band’s living had been amongst green fields and near 
pleasant neighbours, she would have liked it better, 
that she never pretended to deny. But there they 
were : the air wasn’t bad after all ; the people were 
very good sort of people, civil to you if you were civil 
to them, after the first brush ; and they didn’t expect 
to work miracles, and convert them all off-hand into 
model Christians. So he and she went quietly 
among the folk, talking to and treating them just as 
they would have done people of their own rank. 
They didn’t feel that they were doing anything out 
of the common way, and so were perfectly natural, 
and had none of that condescension or consciousness 
of manner which so outrages the independent poor. 
And thus they gradually won respect and confidence ; 
and after sixteen years he was looked up to by the 
whole neighbourhood as the just man, the man to 
whom masters and men could go in their strikes, and 
all in their quarrels and difficulties, and by whom 
the right and true word would be said without fear 
or favour. And the women had come round to take 
her advice, and go to her as a friend in all their 
troubles ; while the children all worshipped the very 
ground she trod on. 

They had three children, two daughters and a son, 
little Arthur, who came between his sisters. He had 
been a very delicate boy from his childhood ; they 
thought he had a tendency to consumption, and so 


ARTHURS S HOME. 


227 

he had been kept at home and taught by his father, 
who had made a companion of him, and from whom 
he had gained good scholarship, and a knowledge of 
and interest in many subjects which boys in general 
never come across till they are many years older. 

Just as he reached his thirteenth year, and his 
father had settled that he was strong enough to go 
to school, and, after much debating with himself, 
had resolved to send him there, a desperate typhus- 
fever broke out in the town ; most of the other 
clergy, and almost all the doctors, ran away; the 
work fell with tenfold weight on those who stood to 
their work. Arthur and his wife both caught the 
fever, of which he died in a few days, and she re- 
covered, having been able to nurse him to the end, 
and store up his last words. He was sensible to the 
last, and calm and happy, leaving his wife and chil- 
dren with fearless trust for a few years in the hands 
of the Lord and Friend who had lived and died for 
him, and for whom he, to the best of his power, had 
lived and died. His widow’s mourning was deep 
and gentle; she was more affected by the request of 
the Committee of a Freethinking Club, established 
in the town by some of the factory hands, (which he 
had striven against with might and main, and nearly 
suppressed,) that some of their number might be al- 
lowed to help bear the coffin, than by anything else. 
Two of them were chosen, who with six other labour- 
ing men, his own fellow-workmen and friends, bore 
him to his grave — a man who had fought the Lord’s 
fight even unto the death. The shops were closed 
and the factories shut that day in the parish, yet no 
master stopped the day’s wages ; but for many a year 
afterwards the townsfolk felt the want of that brave, 
hopeful, loving parson, and his wife, who had lived 


228 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


to teach them mutual forbearance and helpfulness, 
and had almost at last given them a glimpse of what 
this old world would be if people would live for God 
and each other, instead of for themselves. 

What has all this to do with our story ? Well, my 
dear boys, let a fellow go on his own way, or you 
won’t get anything out of him worth having. I must 
show you what sort of a man it was who had begotten 
and trained little Arthur, or else you won’t believe 
in him, which I am resolved you shall do; and you 
won’t see how he, the timid weak boy, had points in 
him from which the bravest and strongest recoiled, 
and made his presence and example felt from the 
first on all sides, unconsciously to himself, and with- 
out the least attempt at proselytizing. The spirit of 
his father was in him, and the Friend to whom his 
father had left him did not neglect the trust. 

After supper that night, and almost nightly for 
years afterwards, Tom and Arthur, and by degrees 
East occasionally, and sometimes one, sometimes 
another, of their friends, read a chapter of the Bible 
together, and talked it over afterwards. Tom was at 
first utterly astonished, and almost shocked, at the 
sort of way in which Arthur read the book, and 
talked about the men and women whose lives were 
there told. The first night they happened to fall on 
the chapters about the famine in Egypt, and Arthur 
began talking about Joseph as if he were a living 
statesman ; just as he might have talked about Lord 
Grey and the Reform Bill; only that they were 
much more living realities to him. The book was 
to him, Tom saw, the most vivid and delightful his- 
tory of real people, who might do right or wrong, 
just like any one who was walking about in Rugby — 
the Doctor, or the masters, or the sixth-form boys. 


RESULTS OF LESSON NO. IL 


229 


But the astonishment soon passed off, the scales 
seemed to drop from his eyes, and the book became 
at once and for ever to him the great human and 
divine book, and the men and women, whom he had 
looked upon as something quite different from him- 
self, became his friends and counsellors. 

For our# purposes, however, the history of one 
night’s reading will be sufficient, which must be told 
here, now we are on the subject, though it didn’t 
happen till a year afterwards, and long after the 
events recorded in the next chapter of our story. 

Arthur, Tom, and East were together one night, 
and read the story of Naaman coming to Elisha to 
be cured of his leprosy. When the chapter was 
finished, Tom shut his Bible with a slap. 

“I can’t stand that fellow Naaman,” said he, 
after what he’d seen and felt, going back and bow- 
ing himself down in the house of Rimmon, because 
his effeminate scoundrel of a master did it. I 
wonder Elisha took the trouble to heal him. How 
he must have despised him.” 

“Yes, there you go off as usual, with a shell on 
your head,” struck in East, who always took the 
opposite side to Tom ; half from love of argument, 
half from conviction. “ How do you know he 
didn’t think better of it? how do you know his 
master was a scoundrel? His letter don’t look like 
it, and the book don’t say so.” 

“ 1 don’t care,” rejoined Tom ; “why did Naaman 
talk about bowing down, then, if he didn’t mean to 
do it ? He wasn’t likely to get more in earnest when 
he got back to court, and away from the prophet.” 

“ Well but, Tom,” said Arthur, “look what Elisha 
says to him, ‘ Go in peace.’ He wouldn’t have said 
that if Naaman had been in the wrong.” 


230 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


I don’t see that that means more than saying, 

< You’re not the man I took you for.’ ” 

“ No, no, that won’t do at all,” said East ; ‘‘read 
the words fairly, and take men as you find tliem. I 
like Naaman, and think he was a very fine fellow.” 

“ I don’t,” said Tom, positively. 

“Well, I think East is right,” said Arthur; “I 
can’t see but what it’s right to do the best you can, 
though it mayn’t be the best absolutely. Every man 
isn’t born to be a martyr.” 

“Of course, of course,” said East; “but he’s on 
one of his pet hobbies. How often have I told you, 
Tom, that you must drive a nail where it’ll go.” 

“And how often have I told you,” rejoined Tom, 
“ that it’ll always go where you want, if you only 
stick to it and hit hard enough. I hate half meas- 
ures and compromises.” 

“Yes, he’s a whole-hbg man, is Tom. Must have 
the whole animal, hair and teeth, claws and tail,” 
laughed East. “Sooner have no bread any day than 
half the loaf.” 

“I don’t know,” said Arthur, “it’s rather puz- 
zling; but ain’t most right things got by proper 
compromises, I mean where the principle isn’t given 
up? ” 

“That’s just the point,” said Tom; “I don’t 
object to a compromise where you don’t give up 
your principle.” 

“ Not you,” said East, laughingly. “ I know him 
of old, Arthur, and you’ll find him out some day. 
There isn’t such a reasonable fellow in the world, to 
hear him talk. He never wants anything but what’s 
right and fair ; only when you come to settle what’s 
right and fair, it’s everything that he wants, and 
nothing that you want. And that’s his idea *of a 


THE BROWN COMPROMISE. 


231 


compromise. Give me the Brown compromise when 
I’m on his side.” 

“ Now, Harry,” said Tom, ^*no more chaff — I’m 
serious. Look here — this is what makes my blood 
tingle; ” and he turned over the pages of his Bible 
and read, “ Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego 
answered and said to the king, * O Nebuchadnezzar, 
we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If 
it so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us 
from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver 
us out of thine hand, O king. But if noty be it 
known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy 
gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast 
set up.’ ” He read the last verse twice, emphasizing 
the nots, and dwelling on them as if they gave him 
actual pleasure, and were hard to part with. 

They were silent a minute, and then Arthur said, 
“ Yes, that’s a glorious story, but it don’t prove your 
point, Tom, I think. There are times when there is 
only one way, and that the highest, and then the 
men are found to stand in the breach.” 

There’s always a highest way, and it’s always the 
right one,” said Tom. “How many times has the 
Doctor told us that in his sermons in the last year, I 
should like to know? ” 

“Well, you ain’t going to convince us, is he, 
Arthur? No Brown compromise to night,” said 
East, looking at his watch. “But it’s past eight, 
and we must go to first lesson. What a bore ! ” 

So they took down their books and fell to work ; 
but Arthur didn’t forget, and thought long and often 
over the conversation. 


232 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


CHAPTER III. 

ARTHUR MAKES A FRIEND. 

A bout six weeks after the beginning of the half, 
as Tom and Arthur were sitting one night be- 
fore supper beginning their verses, Arthur sud- 
denly stopped, and looked up, and said, “ Tom, do 
you know anything of Martin ? ” 

“Yes,” said Tom, taking his hand out of his back 
hair, and delighted to throw his Gradus ad Parnassum 
on to the sofa; “ I know him pretty well. He’s a 
very good fellow, but as mad as a hatter. He’s called 
Madman, you know. And never was such a fellow 
for getting all sorts of rum things about him. He 
tamed two snakes last half, and used to carry them 
about in his pocket, and I’ll be bound he’s got some 
hedgehogs and rats in his cupboard now, and no one 
knows what besides.” 

“I should like very much to know him,” said 
Arthur ; “he was next to me in the form to-day, 
and he’d lost his book and looked over mine, and he 
seemed so kind and gentle, that I liked him very 
much.” 

“Ah, poor old Madman, he’s always losing his 
books,” said Tom, “ and getting called up and 
floored because he hasn’t got them.” 

“I like him all the better,” said Arthur. 

“ Well, he’s great fun, I can tell you,” said Tom, 
throwing himself back on the sofa, and chuckling at 
the remembrance. “ We had such a game with him 
one day last half. He had been kicking up horrid 
stinks for some time in his study, till I suppose some 
fellow told Mary, and she told the Doctor. Anyhow, 


TROUBLES OF A BOY-PHILOSOPHER. 233 

one day a little before dinner, when he came down 
from the library, the Doctor, instead of going home, 
came striding into the Hall. East and I and five or 
six other fellows were at the fire, and preciously we 
stared, for he don't come in like that once a-year, 
unless it is a wet day and there’s a fight in the Hall. 
^East,' says he, ‘just come and show me Martin’s 
study.’ ‘Oh, here’s a game,’ whispered the rest of 
us, and we all cut up-stairs after the Doctor, East 
leading. As we got into the New Row, which was 
hardly wide enough to hold the Doctor and his gown, 
click, click, click, we heard in the old Madman’s den. 
Then that stopped all of a sudden, and the bolts went 
to like fun : the Madman knew East’s step, and 
thought there was going to be a siege. 

“ ‘ It’s the Doctor, Martin. He’s here and wants 
to see you,’ sings out East. 

“Then the bolts went back slowly, and the door 
opened, and there was the old Madman standing, 
looking precious scared ; his jacket off, his shirt- 
sleeves up to his elbows, and his long skinny arms 
all covered with anchors and arrows and letters, tat- 
tooed in with gunpowder like a sailor-boy’s, and a 
stink fit to knock you down coming out. ’Twas all 
the Doctor could do to stand his ground, and East 
and I, who were looking in under his arms, held our 
noses tight. The old magpie was standing on the 
window-sill, all his feathers drooping, and looking 
disgusted and half-poisoned. 

“‘What can you be about, Martin ? ’ says the 
Doctor; ‘you really mustn’t go on in this way — 
you’re a nuisance to the whole passage.’ 

“ ‘ Please, Sir, I was only mixing up this powder,, 
there isn’t any harm in it ; ’ and the Madman seized 
nervously on his pestle and mortar, to show the 


234 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


Doctor the harmlessness of his pursuits, and went 
off pounding; click, click, click; he hadn’t given 
six clicks before, puff! up went the whole into a 
great blaze, away went the pestle and mortar across 
the study, and back we tumbled into the passage. 
The magpie fluttered down into the court, swearing, 
and the Madman danced out, howling, with his fin- 
gers in his mouth. The Doctor caught hold of him, 
and called to us to fetch some water. ‘ There, you 
silly fellow,’ said he, quite pleased though to find he 
wasn’t much hurt, ‘You see you don’t know the 
least what you’re doing with all these things ; and 
now, mind, you must give up practising chemistry 
by yourself.’ Then he took hold of his arm and 
looked at it, and I saw he had to bite his lip, and 
his eyes twinkled ; but he said, quite grave, ‘ Here, 
you see, you’ve been making all these foolish marks 
on yourself, which you can never get out, and you’ll 
be very sorry for it in a year or two: now come 
down to the housekeeper’s room, and let us see if 
you are hurt.’ And away went the two, and 
we all stayed and had a regular turn-out of the den, 
till Martin came back with his hand bandaged and 
turned us out. However, I’ll go and see what he’s 
after, and tell him to come in after prayers to sup- 
per.” And away went Tom to find the boy in 
question, who dwelt in a little study by himself, in 
New Row. 

The aforesaid Martin, whom Arthur had taken 
such a fancy for, was one of those unfortunates who 
were at that time of day (and are, I fear, still) quite 
out of their places at a public school. If we knew 
how to use our boys^ Martin would have been seized 
upon and educated as a natural philosopher. He 
had a passion for birds, beasts, and insects, and 


TROUBLES OF A BOY-PHILOSOPHER. 


235 


knew more of them and their habits than any one in 
Rugby ; except perhaps the Doctor, who knew every- 
thing. He was also an experimental chemist on a 
small scale, and had made unto himself an electric 
machine, from which it was his greatest pleasure and 
glory to administer small shocks to any small boys 
who were rash enough to venture into his study. 
And this was by no means an adventure free from 
excitement ; for, besides the probability of a snake 
dropping on to your head or twining lovingly up 
your leg, or a rat getting into your breeches-pocket 
in search of food, there was the animal and chemical 
odour to be faced, which always hung about the den, 
and the chance of being blown up in some of the 
many experiments which Martin was always trying, 
with the most wondrous results in the shape of ex- 
plosions and smells that mortal boy ever heard of. 
Of course, poor Martin, in consequence of his pur- 
suits, had become an Ishmaelite in the house. In 
the first place, he half-poisoned all his neighbours, 
and they in turn were always on the look-out to 
pounce upon any of his numerous live-stock, and 
drive him frantic by enticing his pet old magpie out 
of his window into a neighbouring study, and making 
the disreputable old bird drunk on toast soaked in 
beer and sugar. Then Martin, for his sins, inhabited 
a study looking into a small court some ten feet 
across, the window of which was completely com- 
manded by those of the studies opposite in the Sick- 
room Row, these latter being at a slightly higher ele- 
vation. East, and another boy of an equally tor- 
menting and ingenious turn of mind, now lived ex- 
actly opposite, and had expended huge pains and 
time in the preparation of instruments of annoyance 
for the behoof of Martin and his live colony. One 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


236 

morning an old basket made its appearance, sus- 
pended by a short cord outside Martin’s window, in 
which were deposited an amateur nest containing four 
young hungry jackdaws, the pride and glory of Mar- 
tin’s life for the time being, and which he was cur- 
rently asserted to have hatched upon his own person. 
Early in the morning, and late at night he was to be 
-seen half out of window, administering to the varied 
wants of his callow brood. After deep cogitation, 
East and his chum had spliced a knife on to the end of 
a fishing-rod ; and having watched Martin out, had, 
after half-an-hour’s severe sawing, cut the string by 
which the basket was suspended, and tumbled it on 
to the pavement below, with hideous remonstrance 
from the occupants. Poor Martin, returning from 
his short absence, collected the fragments and 
replaced his brood (except one whose neck had been 
broken in the descent) in their old location, suspend- 
ing them this time by string and wire twisted to- 
gether, defiant of any sharp instrument which his 
persecutors could command. But, like the Russian 
engineers at Sebastopol, East and his chum had an 
answer for every move of the adversary; and the 
next day had mounted a gun in the shape of a pea- 
shooter upon the ledge of their window, trained so 
as to bear exactly upon the spot which Martin had to 
occupy while tending his nurselings. The moment 
he began to feed, they began to shoot ; in vain did 
the enemy himself invest in a pea-shooter, and en- 
deavour to answer the fire while he fed the young 
birds with his other hand ; his attention was divided, 
and his shots flew wild, while every one of theirs told 
on his face and hands, and drove him into bowlings 
and imprecations. He had been driven to ensconce 
the nest in a corner of his already too well-filled den. 


THE PHILOSOPHER'S DEISr. 


237 


His door was barricaded by a set of ingenious 
bolts of his own invention, for the sieges were fre- 
quent by the neighbours when any unusually ambrosial 
odour spread itself from the den to the neighbouring 
studies. The door panels were in a normal state of 
smash, but the frame of the door resisted all besieg- 
ers, and behind it the owner carried on his varied 
pursuits ; much in the same state of mind, I should 
fancy, as a Border-farmer lived in, in the days of the 
old mosstroopers, when his hold might be summoned 
or his cattle carried off at any. minute of night or 
day. 

‘•Open, Martin, old boy — it’s only I, Tom 
Brown.” 

“ Oh, very well, stop a moment.” One bolt went 
back. “ You’re sure East isn’t there? ” 

“No, no, hang it, open.” Tom gave a kick, the 
other bolt creaked, and he enteredt he den. 

Den indeed it was, about five feet six inches long 
by five wide, and seven feet high. About six tat- 
tered schoolbooks, and a few chemical books. Taxi- 
dermy, Stanley on Birds, and an odd volume of Be- 
wick, the latter in much better preservation, occu- 
pied the top shelves. The other shelves, where they 
had not been cut away and used by the owner for 
other purposes, were fitted up for the abiding places 
of birds, beasts and reptiles. There was no attempt 
at carpet or curtain. The table was entirely occupied 
bv the great work of Martin, the electric machine, 
which was covered carefully with the remains of his 
table-cloth. The jackdaw cage occupied one wall, 
and the other was adorned by a small hatchet, a 
pair of climbing irons, and his tin candle-box, in 
which he was for the time being endeavouring to 
raise a hopeful young family of field-mice. As noth- 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


238 

ing should be let to lie useless, it was well that the 
candle-box was thus occupied, for candles Martin 
never had. A pound was issued to him weekly, as 
to the other boys, but as candles were available cap- 
ital, and easily exchangeable for birds’ -eggs or young 
birds, Martin’s pound invariably found its way in a 
few hours to Rowlett’s the bird-fancier’s, in the Bilton 
Road, who would give a hawk’s or nightingale’s egg 
or young linnet in exchange. Martin’s ingenuity 
was therefore for ever on the rack to supply himself 
with a light ; just now he had hit upon a grand inven- 
tion, and the den was lighted by a flaring cotton- 
wick issuing from a ginger-beer bottle full of some 
doleful composition. When light altogether failed 
him, Martin would loaf about by the fires in the 
passages or Hall, after the manner of Diggs, and try 
to do his verses or learn his lines by the fire-light. 

“ Well, old boy, you haven’t got any sweeter in 
the den this half. How that stuff in the bottle 
stinks. Never mind, I ain’t going to stop, but you 
come up after prayers to our study ; you know young 
Arthur ; we’ve got Gray’s study. We’ll have a good 
supper and talk about birds’-nesting.” 

Martin was evidently highly pleased at the invita- 
tion, and promised to be up without fail. 

As soon as prayers were over, and the sixth and 
fifth-form boys had withdrawn to the aristocratic se- 
clusion of their own room, and the rest, or de- 
mocracy, had sat down to their supper in the Hall, 
Tom and Arthur, having secured their allowances of 
bread and cheese, started on their feet to catch the 
eye of the praepostor of the week, who remained in 
charge during supper, walking up and down the 
Hall. He happened to be an easy-going fellow, so 
they got a pleasant nod to their “Please may I go 


TOM'S WORK. 


239 


out? ” and away they scrambled to prepare for Mar- 
tin a sumptuous banquet. This Tom had insisted 
on, for he was in great delight on the occasion ; the 
reason of which delight must be expounded. The 
fact was, this was the first attempt at a friendship of 
his own which Arthur had made, and Tom hailed it 
as a grand step. The ease with which he himself 
became hail-fellow-well-met with anybody, and blun- 
dered into and out of twenty friendships a half-year, 
made him sometimes sorry and sometimes angry at 
Arthur’s reserve and loneliness. True, Arthur was 
always pleasant, and even jolly, with any boys who 
came with Tom to their study ; but Tom felt that it 
was only through him, as it were, that hjs chum asso- 
ciated with others, and that but for him Arthur 
would have been dwelling in a wilderness. This in- 
creased his consciousness of responsibility ; and 
though he hadn’t reasoned it out and made it clear 
to himself, yet somehow he knew that this responsi- 
bility, this trust which he had taken on him without 
thinking about it, head-over-heels in fact, was the 
centre and turning-point of his school-life, that which 
was to make him or mar him ; his appointed work 
and trial for the time being. And Tom was becom- 
ing a new boy, though with frequent tumbles in the 
dirt and perpetual hard battle with himself, and was 
daily growing in manfulness and thoughtfulness, as 
every high-couraged and well-principled boy must, 
when he finds himself for the first time consciously 
at grips with self and the devil. Already he could 
turn almost without a sigh, from the school-gates, 
from which had just scampered off East and three or 
four otliers of his own particular set, bound for some 
jolly lark not quite according to law, and involving 
probably a row with louts, keepers, or farm-labourers. 


240 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


the skipping dinner or calling-over, some of Phoebe 
Jennings’ beer, and a very possible flogging at the 
end of all as a relish. He had quite got over the 
stage in which he would grumble to himself, “ Well, 
hang it, it’s very hard of the Doctor to have saddled 
me with Arthur. Why couldn’t he have chummed 
him with Fogey, or Thomkin, or any of the fellows 
who never do anything but walk round the close, 
and finish their copies the first day they’re set?” 
But although all this was past, he often longed, and 
felt that he was right in longing, for more time for 
the legitimate pastimes of cricket, fives, bathing, and 
fishing within bounds, in which Arthur could not yet 
be his companion ; and he felt that when the young 
un (as he now generally called him) had found a 
pursuit and some other friend for himself, he should 
be able to give more time to the education of his 
own body with a clear conscience. 

And now what he so wished for had come to pass, 
he almost hailed it as a special providence (as indeed 
it was, but not for the reasons he gave for it — what 
providences are?) that Arthur should have singled 
out Martin of all fellows for a friend. “The old 
Madman is the very fellow,” thought he; “ he will 
take him scrambling over half the country after birds’ 
eggs and flowers, make him run and swim and climb 
like an Indian, and not teach him a word of any- 
thing bad, or keep him from his lessons. What 
luck!” And so, with more than his usual hearti- 
ness, he dived into his cupboard, and hauled out an 
old knuckle-bone of ham, and two or three bottles 
of beer, together with the solemn pewter only used 
on state occasions ; while Arthur, equally elated at 
the easy accomplishment of his first act of volition 
in the joint establishment, produced from his side a 


THE SUPPER, 


241 


bottle of pickles and a pot of jam, and cleared the 
table. In a minute or two the noise of the boys 
coming up from supper was heard, and Martin 
knocked and was admitted, bearing his bread and 
cheese, and the three fell to with hearty good-will 
upon the viands, talking faster than they ate, for all 
shyness disappeared in a moment before Tom’s 
bottled beer and hospitable ways. “ Here’s Arthur, 
a regular young town mouse, with a natural taste for 
the woods, Martin, longing to break his neck climb- 
ing trees, and with a passion for young snakes.” 

“ Well, I say,” sputtered out Martin, eagerly, will 
you come to-morrow, both of you, to Caldecott’s 
Spinney, then, for I know of a kestrel’s nest, up a 
fir-tree — I can’t get at it without help; and, Brown, 
you can climb against any one.” 

“Oh yes, do let us go,” said Arthur; “I never 
saw a hawk’s nest, nor a hawk’s egg.” 

“ You just come down to my study then, and I’ll 
show you five sorts,” said Martin. 

“ Ay, the old Madman has got the best collection 
in the house, out-and-out,” said Tom; and then 
Martin, warming with unaccustomed good cheer and 
the chance of a convert, launched out into a proposed 
birds’-nesting campaign, betraying all manner of im- 
portant secrets; a golden-crested wren’s nest near 
Butlin’s Mound, a moor-hen that was sitting on nine 
eggs in a pond down the Barby Road, and a king- 
fisher’s nest in a corner of the old canal above 
Brownsover Mill. He had heard, he said, that no 
one had ever got a kingfisher’s nest out perfect, and 
that the British Museum, or the Government, or 
somebody, had offered ;£ioo to any one who could 
bring them a nest and eggs not damaged. In the 
middle of which astounding announcement, to which 
16 


242 


TOM BROIVN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


the others were listening with open ears, already con- 
sidering the application of the a knock came 

at the door, and East’s voice was heard craving ad- 
mittance. 

“ There’s Harry,” said Tom ; we’ll let him in — 
ril keep him steady, Martin. I thought the old boy 
would smell out the supper.” 

The fact was that Tom’s heart had already smit- 
ten him for not asking his “ fidus Achates” to the 
feast, although only an extempore affair ; and though 
prudence and the desire to get Martin and Arthur 
together alone at first had overcome his scruples, he 
was now heartily glad to open the door, broach an- 
other bottle of beer, and hand over the old ham- 
knuckle to the searching of his old friend’s pocket- 
knife. 

‘‘Ah, you greedy vagabonds,” said East, with his 
mouth full ; “ I knew there was something going on 
when I saw you cut off out of Hall so quick with 
your suppers. What a stunning tap, Tom ! you are 
a wunner for bottling the swipes.” 

“ I’ve had practice enough for the sixth in my 
time, and it’s hard if I haven’t picked up a wrinkle 
or two' for my own benefit.” 

“Well, old Madman, how goes the birds’-nesting 
campaign? How’s Howlett? I expect the young 
rooks’ll be out in another fortnight, and then my 
turn comes.” 

“There’ll be no young rooks fit for pies for a 
month yet ; shows how much you know about it,” re- 
joined Martin, who, though very good friends with 
East, regarded him with considerable suspicion for 
his propensity to practical jokes. 

“ Scud knows nothing and cares for nothing* but 
grub and mischief,” said Tom ; “ but young rook pie. 


VULGUSES. 


243 


specially when you’ve had to climb for them, is very 
pretty eating. However, I say, Scud, we’re all going 
after a hawk’s nest to-morrow, in Caldecott’s Spin- 
ney ; and if you’ll come and behave yourself, we’ll 
have a stunning climb.” 

“ And a bathe in Aganippe. Hooray! I’m your 
man I ” 

“No, no; no bathing in Aganippe; that’s where 
our betters go.” 

“ Well, well, never mind. I’m for the hawk’s nest 
and anything that turns up.” 

And the bottled-beer being finished, and his hun- 
ger appeased. East departed to his study, “ that 
sneak Jones,” as he informed them, who had just 
got into the sixth and occupied the next study, hav- 
ing instituted a nightly visitation upon East and his 
chum, to their no small discomfort. 

When he was gone, Martin rose to follow, but 
Tom stopped him. “ No one goes near New 
Row,” said he, “so you may just as well stop here 
and do your verses, and then we’ll have some more 
talk. We’ll be no end quiet ; besides, no praepostor 
comes here now — we haven’t been visited once this 
half.” 

So the table was cleared, the cloth restored, and 
the three fell to work with Gradus and dictionary 
upon the morning’s vulgus. 

They were three very fair examples of the way in 
which such tasks were done at Rugby, in the consul- 
ship of Plancus. And doubtless the method is little 
changed, for there is nothing new under the sun, 
especially at schools. 

Now be it known unto all you boys who are at 
schools which do not rejoice in the time-honoured 
institution of the Vulgus, (commonly supposed to 


244 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


have been established by William of Wykeham at 
Winchester, and imported to Rugby by Arnold, 
more for the sake of the lines which were learnt by 
heart with it, than for its own intrinsic value, as Tve 
always understood) that it is a short exercise, in 
Greek or Latin verse, on a given subject, the mini- 
mum number of lines being fixed for each form. 
The master of the form gave out at fourth lesson on 
the previous day the subject for next morning’s 
vulgus, and at first lesson each boy had to bring his 
vulgus ready to be looked over; and with the vulgus, 
a certain number of lines from one of the Latin or 
Greek poets then being construed in the form had to 
be got by heart. The master at first lesson called 
up each boy in the form in order, and put him on 
in the lines. If he couldn’t say them, or seem to 
say them, by reading them off the master’s or some 
other boy’s book who stood near, he was sent back, 
and went below all the boys who did so say or seem 
to say them ; but in either case his vulgus was looked 
over by the master, who gave and entered in his 
book, to the credit or discredit of the boy, so many 
marks as the composition merited. At Rugby vulgus 
and lines were the first lesson every other day in the 
week, or Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays ; and 
as there were thirty-eight weeks in the school year, 
it is obvious to the meanest capacity that the master 
of each form had to set one hundred and fourteen 
subjects every year, two hundred and twenty-eight 
every two years, and so on. Now to persons of 
moderate invention this was a considerable task, and 
human nature being prone to repeat itself, it will 
not be wondered that the masters gave the same sub- 
jects sometimes over again after a certain lapse of 
time. To meet and rebuke this bad habit of the 


VU LG USES. 


245 


masters, the school-boy-mind, with its accustomed 
ingenuity, had invented an elaborate system of 
tradition. Almost every boy kept his own vulgus 
written out in a book, and these books were duly 
handed down from boy to boy, till (if the tradition 
has gone on till now) I suppose the popular boys, in 
whose hands bequeathed vulgus-books have accumu- 
lated, are prepared with three or four vulguses on 
any subject in heaven or earth, or in “more worlds 
than one,” which an unfortunate master can pitch 
upon. At any rate, such lucky fellows had generally 
one for themselves and one for a friend in my time. 
The only objection to the traditionary method of 
doing your vulguses was, the risk that the successions 
might have become confused, and so that you and 
another follower of traditions should show up the 
same identical vulgus some fine morning ; in which 
case, when it happened, considerable grief was the 
result — but when did such risk hinder boys or men 
from short cuts and pleasant paths? 

Now in the study that night, Tom was the upholder 
of the traditionary method of vulgus doing. He care- 
fully produced two large vulgus-books, and began 
diving into them, and picking out a line here, and an 
ending there (tags, as they were vulgarly called), till 
he had gotten all that he thought he could make fit. 
He then proceeded to patch his tags together with 
the help of his Gradus, producing an incongruous 
and feeble result of elegiac lines, the minimum quan- 
tity for his form, and finishing up with two highly moral 
lines extra, making ten in all, which he cribbed en- , 
tire from one of his books, beginning “O genus 
humanum,” and which he himself must have used 
a dozen times before, whenever an unfortunate or 
wicked hero, of whatever nation or language under 

I 


246 TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 

the sun, was the subject. Indeed, he began to have 
great doubts whether the master wouldn’t remember 
them, and so only threw them in as extra lines, 
because in any case they would call off attention 
from the other tags, and if detected, being extra 
lines, he wouldn’t be sent back to do two more in 
their place, while if they passed muster again he 
would get marks for them. 

The second method pursued by Martin may be 
called the dogged, or prosaic method. He, no more 
than Tom, took any pleasure in the task, but having 
no old vulgus-books of his own, or any one’s else, 
could not follow the traditionary method, for which 
too, as Tom remarked, he hadn’t the genius. Martin 
then proceeded to write down eight lines in English, 
of the most matter-of-fact kind, the first that came 
into his head, and to convert these, line by line, by 
main force of Gradus and dictionary, into Latin 
that would scan. This was all he cared for, to pro- 
^ duce eight lines with no false quantities or concords : 
whether the words were apt, or what the sense was, 
mattered nothing; and, as the article was all new, 
not a line beyond the minimum did the followers of 
the dogged method ever produce. 

The third, or artistic method, was Arthur’s. He 
considered first what point in the character or event 
which was the subject could most neatly be brought 
out within the limits of a vulgus, trying always to get 
his idea into the eight lines, but not binding himself 
to ten or even twelve lines if he couldn’t do this. 
He then set to work, as much as possible without 
Gradus or other help, to clothe his idea in appro- 
priate Latin or Greek, and would not be satisfied till 
he had polished it well up with the aptest and most 
poetic words and phrases he could get at. 


MARTIN’S DEN 


247 


A fourth method indeed was used in the school, 
but of too simple a kind to require a comment. It 
may be called the vicarious method, obtained 
amongst big boys of lazy or bullying habits, and 
consisted simply in making clever boys whom they 
could thrash do their whole vulgus for them, and 
construe it to them afterwards ; which latter is a 
method not to be encouraged, and which I strongly 
advise you all not to practise. Of the others, you 
will find the traditionary most troublesome, unless 
you can steal your vulguses whole (experto crede), 
and that the artistic method pays the best both in 
marks and other ways. 

The vulguses being finished by nine o’clock, and 
Martin having rejoiced above measure in the abun- 
dance of light, and of Gradus and dictionary, and 
other conveniences almost unknown to him for get- 
ting through the work, and having been pressed by 
Arthur to come and do his verses there whenever he 
liked, the three boys went down to Martin’s den, 
and Arthur was initiated into the lore of bird’s-eggs, 
to his great delight. The exquisite colouring and 
forms astonished and charmed him who had scarcely 
ever seen any but a hen’s egg or an ostrich’s, and by 
the time he was lugged away to bed he had learned 
the names of at least twenty sorts, and dreamt of the 
glorious perils of tree-climbing and that he had 
found a roc’s egg in the island as big as Sinbad’s 
and clouded like a tit-lark’s, in blowing which Mar- 
tin and he had nearly been drowned in the yolk. 


248 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


CHAPTER IV. 

THE BIRD-FANCIERS. 

T he next morning at first lesson Tom was turned 
back in his lines, and so had to wait till the 
second round, while Martin and Arthur said 
theirs all right and got out of school at once. When 
Tom got out and ran down to breakfast at Harro- 
well’s they were missing, and Stumps informed him 
that they had swallowed down their breakfasts and 
gone off together, where, he couldn’t say. Tom 
hurried over his own breakfast, and went first to 
Martin’s study and then to his own, but no signs of 
the missing boys were to be found. He felt half an- 
gry and jealous of Martin — where could they be 
gone ? 

He learnt second lesson with East and the rest in 
no very good temper, and then went out into the 
quadrangle. About ten minutes before school Mar- 
tin and Arthur arrived in the quadrangle breathless; 
and, catching sight of him, Arthur rushed up all 
excitement and with a bright glow on his face. 

“Oh, Tom, look here,” cried he, holding out 
three moor-hen’s eggs; “we’ve been down the 
Barby Road to the pool Martin told us of last night, 
and just see what we’ve got.” 

Tom wouldn’t be pleased, and only looked out for 
something to find fault with. 

“Why, young un,” said he, “what have you 
been after? You don’t mean to say you’ve been 
wading?” 

The tone of reproach made poor little Arthur 
shrink up in a moment and look piteous, and Tom 


TOM PUT OUT. 


249 

with a shrug of his shoulders turned his anger on 
Martin. 

“ Well, I didn’t think, Madman, that you’d have 
been such a muff as to let him be getting wet through 
at this time of day. You might have done the wad- 
ing yourself.” 

“ So I did, of course, only he would come in too 
to see the nest. We left six eggs in \ they’ll be 
hatched in a day or two.” 

“Hang the eggs!” said Tom; “a fellow can’t 
turn his back for a moment but all his work’s 
undone. He’ll be laid up for a week for this pre- 
cious lark. I’ll be bound.” 

“ Indeed, Tom, now,” pleaded Arthur, “ my feet 
ain’t wet, for Martin made me take off my shoes and 
stockings and trousers.” 

“ But they are wet and dirty, too — can’t I see? ” 
answered Tom; “and you’ll be called up and 
floored when the master sees what a state you’re in. 
You haven’t looked at second lesson, you know.” 
Oh Tom, you old humbug 1 you to be upbraiding any 
one with not learning their lessons 1 If you hadn’t 
been floored yourself now at first lesson, do you 
mean to say you wouldn’t have been with them? 
and you’ve taken away all poor little Arthur’s joy 
and pride in his first birds’ eggs ; and he goes and 
puts them down in the study, and takes down his 
books with a sigh, thinking he has done something 
horribly wrong, whereas he has learnt on in advance 
much more than will be done at second lesson. 

But the old Madman hasn’t, and gets called up and 
makes some frightful shots, losing about ten places, 
and all but getting floored. This somewhat appeases 
Tom’s wrath, and by the end of the lesson he has 
regained his temper. And afterwards in their study 


250 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


he begins to get right again, as he watches Arthur’s 
intense joy at seeing Martin blowing the eggs and 
glueing them carefully on to bits of cardboard, and 
notes the anxious loving looks which the little fellow 
casts sidelong at him. And then he thinks, ‘‘ What 
an ill-tempered beast I am ! Here’s just what I was 
wishing for last night come about, and I’m spoiling 
it all,” and in another five minutes has swallowed 
the last mouthful of his bile, and is repaid by seeing 
his little sensitive-plant expand again, and sun itself 
in his smiles. 

After dinner the Madman is busy with the prepara- 
tions for their expedition, fitting new straps on to 
his climbing-irons, filling large pill-boxes with cotton 
wool, and sharpening East’s small axe. They carry 
all their munitions into calling-over, and directly 
afterwards, having dodged such praepostors as are on 
the look-out for fags at cricket, the four set off at a 
smart trot down the Lawford footpath straight for 
Caldecott’s Spinney and the hawk’s nest. 

Martin leads the way in high feather ; it is quite a 
new sensation to him getting companions, and he 
finds it very pleasant, and means to show them all 
manner of proofs of his science and skill. Brown 
and East may be better at cricket and football and 
games, thinks he, but out in the fields and woods 
see if I can’t teach them something. He has taken 
the leadership already, and strides away in front 
with his climbing-irons strapped under one arm, his 
pecking-bag under the other, and his pockets and hat 
full of pill-boxes, cotton wool, and other etceteras. 
Each of the others carries a pecking-bag, and East 
hjs hatchet. 

When they had crossed three or four fields without 
a check, Arthur began to lag, and Tom seeing this 


BIRD'S NESTING. 


251 


shouted to Martin to pull up a bit : “ We ain’t out 
Hare-and-hounds — what’s the good of grinding on 
at this rate ? ” 

“There’s the Spinney,” said Martin, pulling up 
on the brow of a slope at the bottom of which lay 
Tawford brook, and pointing to the top of the op- 
posite slope; “ the nest is in one of those high fir- 
trees at this end. And down by the brook there, I 
know of a sedge-bird’s nest ; we’ll go and look at it 
coming back.” 

“ Oh, come on, don’t let us stop,” said Arthur, 
who was getting excited at the sight of the wood ; so 
they broke into a trot again,* and were soon across 
the brook, up the slope, and into the Spinney. 
Here they advanced as noiselessly as possible, lest 
keepers or other enemies should be about, and 
stopped at the foot of a tall fir, at the top of which 
Martin pointed out with pride the kestrel’s nest, the 
object of their quest. 

“ Oh where ! which is it?” asks Arthur, gaping 
up in the air, and having the most vague idea of 
what it would be like. 

“There, don’t you see?” said East, pointing toa 
lump of mistletoe in the next tree, which was a beech : 
he saw that Martin and Tom were busy with the 
climbing-irons, and couldn’t resist the temptation of 
hoaxing. Arthur stared and wondered more than ever. 

“Well, how curious! it doesn’t look a bit like 
what I expected,” said he. 

“Very odd birds, kestrels,” said East, looking 
waggishly at his victim, who was still star-gazing. 

“ But I thought it was ,in a fir-tree? ” objected 
Arthur. 

“Ah, don’t you know ? that’s a new sort of fir, 
which old Caldecott brought from the Himalayas.” 


252 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


Really ! ” said Arthur; glad I know that 

— how unlike our firs they are ! They do very well 
too here, don’t they? the Spinney’s full of them.” 

‘‘What’s that humbug he’s telling you?” cried 
Tom, looking up, having caught the word Himalayas, 
and suspecting what East was after. 

“Only about this fir,” said Arthur, putting his 
hand on the stem of the beech. 

“Fir! ” shouted Tom, “why, you don’t mean to 
say, young un, you don’t know a beech when you 
see one ? ’ ’ 

Poor little Arthur looked terribly ashamed, and 
East exploded in laughter which made the wood ring. 

“I’ve hardly ever seen any trees,” faltered Ar- 
thur. 

“ What a shame to hoax him. Scud ! ” cried Mar- 
tin. “ Never mind, Arthur, you shall know more 
about trees than he does in a week or two.” 

“And isn’t that the kestrel’s nest, then?” asked 
Arthur. 

“ That ! why, that’s a piece of mistletoe. There’s 
the nest, that lump of sticks up this fir.” 

“ Don’t believe him, Arthur,” struck in the incor- 
rigible East; “ I just saw an old magpie go out of 
it.” 

Martin did not deign to reply to this sally, except 
by a grunt, as he buckled the last buckle of his climb- 
ing-irons ; and Arthur looked reproachfully at East 
without speaking. 

But now came the tug of war. It was a very diffi- 
cult tree to climb until the branches were reached, 
the first of which was soipe fourteen feet up, for the 
trunk was too large at the bottom to be swarmed ; 
in fact, neither of the boys could reach more than 
half round it with their arms. Martin and Tom, 


BIRD'S NESTING. 


253 


both of whom had irons on, tried it without success 
at first ; the fir bark broke away where they stuck the 
irons in as soon as they leant any weight on their 
feet, and the grip of their arms wasn’t enough to 
keep them up ; so, after getting up three or four feet, 
down they came slithering to the ground, barking 
their arms and faces. They were furious, and East 
sat by laughing and shouting at each failure, “ Two 
to one on the old magpie ! ” 

“ We must try a pyramid,” said Tom at last. 

Now, Scud, you lazy rascal, stick yourself against 
the tree ! ” 

“ I dare say ! and have you standing on my shoul- 
ders with the irons on : what do you think my skin’s 
made of?” However, up he got, and leant against 
the tree, putting his head down and clasping it with 
his arms as far as he could. “ Now then. Madman,” 
said Tom, ‘‘you next.” 

“No, I’m lighter than you; you go next.” So 
Tom got on East’s shoulders, and grasped the tree 
above, and then Martin scrambled up on Tom’s 
shoulders, amidst the totterings and groan ings of the 
pyramid, and, with a spring which sent his support- 
ers howling to the ground, clasped the stem some ten 
feet up, and remained clinging. For a moment or 
two they thought he couldn’t get up, but then, hold- 
ing on with arms and teeth, he worked first one iron, 
then the other, firmly into the bark, got another grip 
with his arms, and in another minute had hold of the 
lowest branch. 

“ All up with the old magpie now,” said East ; and, 
after a minute’s rest, up went Martin, hand over 
hand, watched by Arthur with fearful eagerness. 

“ Isn’t it very dangerous? ” said he. 

“ Not a bit,” answered Tom ; “ you can’t hurt if 


TOM BROmV^S SCHOOL DAYS. 


254 

you only get good hand-hold. Try every branch 
with a good pull before you trust it, and then up you 

Martin was now amongst the small branches close 
to the nest, and away dashed the old bird, and soared 
up above the trees, watching the intruder. 

“All right — four eggs ! ” shouted he. 

“ Take ’em all ! ” shouted East ; “ that’ll be one 
apiece.” 

“No, no! leave one, and then she won’t care,” 
said Tom. 

We boys had an idea that birds couldn’t count, 
and were quite content as long as you left one egg. 
I hope it is so. 

Martin carefully put one egg into each of his 
boxes and the third into his mouth, the only other 
place of safety, and came down like a lamplighter. 
All went well till he was within ten feet of the 
ground, when, as the trunk enlarged, his hold got 
less and less firm, and at last down he came with a 
run, tumbling on to his back on the turf, spluttering 
and spitting out the remains of the great egg, which 
had broken by the jar of his fall. 

“ Ugh, ugh — something to drink — ugh 1 it was. 
addled,” spluttered he, while the wood rang again 
with the merry laughter of East and Tom. 

Then they examined the prizes, gathered up their 
things, and went off to the brook, where Martin 
swallowed huge draughts of water to get rid of the 
taste; and they visited the sedge-bird’s nest, and 
from thence struck across the country in high glee, 
beating the hedges and brakes as they went along ; 
and Arthur at last, to his intense delight, was allowed 
to climb a small hedgerow oak for a magpie’s nest 
with Tom, who kept all round him like a mother,. 


PECKING. 


255 


and showed him where to hold and how to throw his 
weight; and though he was in a great fright, didn’t 
show it ; and was applauded by all for his lissom- 
ness. 

They crossed a road soon afterwards, and there 
close to them lay a heap of charming pebbles. 

‘‘Look here,” shouted East, “here’s luck! I’ve 
been longing for some good honest pecking this half 
hour. Let’s fill the bags, and have no more of this 
foozling bird’s-nesting.” 

No one objected, so each boy filled the fustian bag 
he carried full of stones : they crossed into the next 
field, Tom and East taking one side of the hedges, 
and the other two the other side. Noise enough 
they made certainly, but it was too early in the sea- 
son for the young birds, and the old birds were too 
strong on the wing for our young marksmen, and flew 
out of shot after the first discharge. But it was great 
fun, rushing along the hedgerows, and discharging 
stone after stone at blackbirds and chaffinches, though 
no result in the shape of slaughtered birds was 
obtained : and Arthur soon entered into it, and 
rushed to head back the birds, and shouted, and 
threw, and tumbled into ditches and over and through 
hedges, as wild as the Madman himself. 

Presently the party, in full cry after an old black- 
bird (who was evidently used to the thing and en- 
joyed the fun, for he would wait till they came close 
to him and then fly on for forty yards or so, and, 
with an impudent flicker of his tail, dart into the 
depths of the quickset), came beating down a high 
double hedge, two on each side. 

“ There he is again,” “Head him,” “Letdrive,” 
“ I had him there,” “Take care where you’re throw- 
ing, Madman,” the shouts might have been heard a 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


256 

quarter of a mile off. They were heard some two 
hundred yards off by a farmer and two of his shep- 
herds, who were doctoring sheep in a fold in the 
next field. 

Now, the farmer in question rented a house and 
yard situate at the end of the field in which the 
young bird-fanciers had arrived, which house and 
yard he didn’t occupy or keep any one else in. 
Nevertheless, like a brainless and unreasoning Briton, 
he persisted in maintaining on the premises a large 
stock of cocks, hens, and other poultry. Of course, 
all sorts of depredators visited the place from time to 
time : foxes and gipsies wrought havoc in the night ; 
while in the day time, I regret to have to confess 
that visits from the Rugby boys, and consequent dis- 
appearances of ancient and respectable fowls, were 
not unfrequent. Tom and East had during the 
period of their outlawry visited the barn in question 
for felonious purposes, and on one occasion had con- 
quered and slain a duck there, and borne away the 
carcase triumphantly, hidden in their handkerchiefs. 
However, they were sickened of the practice by the 
trouble and anxiety which the wretched duck’s body 
caused them. They carried it to Sally Harrowed’ s 
in hopes of a good supper; but she, after examining 
it, made a long face, and refused to dress or have 
anything to do with it. Then they took it into their 
study, and began plucking it themselves ; but what 
to do with the feathers, — where to hide them ? 

‘‘Good gracious, Tom, what a lot of feathers a 
duck has ! ” groaned East, holding a bagful in his 
hand, and looking disconsolately at the carcase, not 
yet half plucked. 

“And I do think he’s getting high too, already,” 


THE TROUBLESOME DUCK. 


257 

said Tom, smelling at him cautiously, “so we must 
finish him up soon.” 

“ Yes, all very well ; but how are we to cook him ? 
I’m sure I ain’t going to try it on in the hall or pas- 
sages ; we can’t afford to be roasting ducks about, 
our character’s too bad.” 

“I wish we were rid of the brute,” said Tom, 
throwing him on the table in disgust. And after a 
day or two more it became clear that got rid of he 
must be; so they packed him and sealed him up in 
brown paper, and put him in the cupboard of an un- 
occupied study, where he was found in the holidays 
by the matron, a grewsome body. 

They had never been duck-hunting there since, 
but others had, and the bold yeoman was very sore 
on the subject, and bent on making an example of 
the first boys he could catch. So he and his shep- 
herds crouched behind the hurdles, and watched the 
party, who were approaching all unconscious. 

Why should that old guinea-fowl be lying out in 
the hedge just at this particular moment of all the 
year ? Who can say ? Guinea-fowls always are — so 
are all other things, animals, and persons, requisite 
for getting one into scrapes, always ready when any 
mischief can come of them. At any rate, just under 
East’s nose popped out the old guinea-hen, scuttling 
along and shrieking “ Come back, come back,” at 
the top of her voice. Either of the other three 
might perhaps have withstood the temptation, but 
East first lets drive the stone he has in his hand at 
her, and then rushes to turn her into the hedge 
again. He succeeds, and then they are all at it for 
dear life, up and down the hedge in full cry, the 
“Come back, come back,” getting shriller and 
fainter every minute. 

17 


258 tom browm^s school days. 

Meantime, the farmer and his men steal over the 
hurdles and creep down the hedge towards the scene 
of action. They are almost within a stone’s throw 
of Martin, who is pressing the unlucky chase hard, 
when Tom catches sight of them, and sings out, 
‘‘Louts, ’ware louts, your side! Madman, look 
ahead ! ” and then catching hold of Arthur, hurries 
him away across the field towards Rugby as hard as 
they can tear. Had he been by himself, he would 
have stayed to see it out with the others, but now 
his heart sinks and all his pluck goes. The idea of 
being led up to the Doctor with Arthur for bagging 
fowls, quite unmans and takes half the run out of 
him. 

However, no boys are more able to take care of 
themselves than East and Martin ; they dodge the 
pursuers, slip through a gap, and come pelting after 
Tom and Arthur, whom they catch up in no time ; 
the farmer and his men are making good running 
about a field behind. Tom wishes to himself that 
they had made off in any other direction, but now 
they are all in for it together, and must see it out. 
“You won’t leave the young un, will you?” says 
he, as they haul poor little Arthur, already losing 
wind from the fright, through the next hedge. 
“Not we,” is the answer from both. The next 
hedge is a stiff one; the pursuers gain horribly on 
them, and they only just pull Arthur through, with 
two great rents in his trousers, as the foremost shep- 
herd comes up on the other side. As they start into 
the next field, they are aware of two figures walking 
down the footpath in the middle of it, and recognise 
Holmes and Diggs taking a constitutional. Those 
good-natured fellows immediately shout “On.” 
“Let’s go to them and surrender,” pants Tom. — 


RUNNING FOR A CONVOY. 


259 


Agreed. — And in another minute the four boys, to 
the great astonishment of those worthies, rush 
breathless up to Holmes and Diggs, who pull up to 
see what is the matter ; and then the whole is 
explained by the appearance of the farmer and his 
men, who unite their forces and bear down on the 
knot of boys. 

There is no time to explain, and Tom’s heart beats 
frightfully quick, as he ponders, “Will they stand 
by us? ” 

The farmer makes a rush at East and collars him; 
and that young gentleman, with unusual discretion, 
instead of kicking his shins, looks appealingly at 
Holmes, and stands still. 

“Hullo there, not so fast,” says Holmes, who is 
bound to stand up for them till they are proved in 
the wrong. “ Now what’s all this about ? ” 

“I’ve got the young varmint at last, have I,” 
pants the farmer; “why they’ve been skulking 
about my yard and stealing my fowls, that’s where 
’tis ; and if I doan’t have they flogged for it, every 
one on ’em, my name ain’t Thompson.” 

Holmes looks grave, and Diggs’s face falls. 
They are quite ready to fight, no boys in the school 
more so ; but they are praepostors, and understand 
their office, and can’t uphold unrighteous causes. 

“I haven’t been near his old barn this half,” 
cries East. “ Nor I,” “ Nor I,” chime in Tom and 
Martin. 

“Now, Willum, didn’t you see ’m there last 
week ? ’ ’ 

“ Ees, I seen ’em sure enough,” says Willum, 
grasping a prong he carried, and preparing for ac- 
tion. 

The boys deny stoutly, and Willum is driven to 


26 o 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


admit that, ‘Mf it worn’t they, ’twas chaps as like 
’em as two peas’ n ; ” and “ leastways he’ll swear he 
see’d them two in the yard last Martinmas,” indi- 
cating East and Tom. 

Holmes had time to meditate. “Now, sir,” says 
he to Willum, “you see you can’t remember what 
you have seen, and I believe the boys.” 

“ I doan’t care,” blusters the farmer; “ they was 
arter my fowls to-day, that’s enough for I. Willum, 
you catch hold o’ t’other chap. They’ve been a sneak- 
ing about this two hours, I tells ’ee,” shouted he, as 
Holmes stands between Martin and Willum, “and 
have druv a matter of a dozen young pullets pretty 
nigh to death.” 

“Oh, there’s a whacker!” cried East; “we 
haven’t been within a hundred yards of his barn ; we 
haven’t been up here above ten minutes, and we’ve 
seen nothing but a tough old guinea-hen, who ran 
like a greyhound.” 

“ Indeed, that’s all true. Holmes, upon my 
honour,” added Tom; “we weren’t after his fowls; 
the guinea-hen ran out of the hedge under our feet, 
and we’ve seen nothing else.” 

“Drat their talk. Thee catch hold o’ t’other, 
Willum, and come along wi’ un.” 

“Farmer Thompson,” said Holmes, warning off 
Willum and the prong with his stick, while Diggs 
faced the other shepherd, cracking his fingers, like 
pistol shots, “now listen to reason — the boys haven’t 
been after your fowls, that’s plain.” 

“ Tells ’ee I see’d ’em. Who be you, I should 
like to know?” 

“Never you mind. Farmer,” answered Holmes. 
“And now I’ll just tell you what it is — you ought 
to be ashamed of yourself for leaving all that poultry 


A DEBATE. 


261 


about, with no one to watch it, so near the School. 
You deserve to have it all stolen. So if you choose to 
come up to the Doctor with them, I shall go with 
you, and tell him what I think of it.” 

The farmer began to take Holmes for a master ; 
besides, he wanted to get back to his flock. Corporal 
punishment was out of the question, the odds were 
too great ; so he began to hint at paying for the 
damage. Arthur jumped at this, offering to pay any- 
thing, and the farmer immediately valued the guinea- 
hen at half-a-sovereign. 

“ Half-a-sovereign ! ” cried East, now released 
from the farmer’s grip ; ‘‘well, that is a good one! 
the hen ain’t hurt a bit, and she’s seven years old, I 
know, and as tough as whipcord ; she couldn’t lay 
another egg to save her life.” 

It was at last settled that they should pay the farmer 
two shillings, and his man one shilling, and so the 
matter ended, to the unspeakable relief of Tom, who 
hadn’t been able to say a word, being sick at heart 
at the idea of what the Doctor would think of him : 
and now the whole party of boys marched off down 
the footpath towards Rugby. Holmes, who was one 
of the best boys in the School, began to improve the 
occasion. “Now, you youngsters,” said he, as he 
marched along in the middle of them, “mind this; 
you’re very well out of this scrape. Don’t you go 
near Thompson’s barn again ; do you hear? ” 

Profuse promises from all, especially East. 

“Mind, I don’t ask questions,” went on Mentor, 
“ but I rather think some of you have been there be- 
fore this after his chickens. Now, knocking over 
other people’s chickens, and running off with them, 
is stealing. It’s a nasty word, but that’s the plain 
English of it. If the chickens were dead and lying 


262 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS, 


in a shop, you wouldn’t take them, I know that, any 
more than you would apples out of Griffith’s basket ; 
but there’s no real difference between chickens run- 
ning about and apples on a tree, and the same 
articles in a shop. I wish our morals were sounder 
in such matters. There’s nothing so mischievous as 
these school distinctions, which jumble up right and 
wrong, and justify things in us for which poor boys 
would be sent to prison.” And, good old Holmes 
delivered his soul on the walk home of many wise 
sayings, and, as the song says — 

“ Gee'd 'em a sight of good advice” — 

which same sermon sank into them all, more or less, 
and very penitent they were for several hours. But 
truth compels me to admit that East at any rate for- 
got it all in a week, but remembered the insult which 
had been put upon him by Farmer Thompson, and 
with the Tadpole and other harebrained youngsters, 
committed a raid on the barn soon afterwards, in 
which they were caught by the shepherds and severely 
handled, besides having to pay eight shillings, all 
the money they had in the world, to escape being 
taken up to the Doctor. 

Martin became a constant inmate in the joint 
study from this time, and Arthur took to him so 
kindly, that Tom couldn’t resist slight fits of jeal- 
ousy, which, however, he managed to keep to him- 
self. The kestrel’s eggs had not been broken, strange 
to say, and formed the nucleus of Arthur’s collection, 
at which Martin worked heart and soul ; and intro- 
duced Arthur to Howlett the bird-fancier, and in- 
structed him in the rudiments of the art of stuffing. 
In token of his gratitude, Arthur allowed Martin to 
tattoo a small anchor on one of his wrists, which 


FIGHTING IN GENERAL. 


263 

decoration, however, he carefully concealed from 
Tom. Before the end of the half year he had trained 
into a bold climber and good runner, and, as Martin 
had foretold, knew twice as much about trees, birds, 
flowers, and many other things, as our good-hearted 
and facetious young friend Harry East. 

o 

CHAPTER V. 

THE FIGHT. 

T here is a certain sort of fellow — we who are 
used to studying boys all know him well enough 
— of whom you can predicate with almost pos- 
itive certainty, after he has been a month at school, 
that he is sure to have a fight, and with almost equal 
certainty that he will have but one. Tom Brown was 
one of these ; and as it is our well-weighed intention 
to give a full, true, and correct account of Tom’s 
only single combat with a school-fellow in the manner 
of our old friend BelV s Life^ let those young per- 
sons whose stomachs are not strong, or who think a 
good set-to with the weapons which God has given us 
all, an uncivilized, unchristian, or ungentlemanly 
affair, just skip this chapter at once, for it won’t be 
to their taste. 

It was not at all usual in those days for two School- 
house boys to have a fight. Of course there were 
exceptions, when some cross-grained hard-headed 
fellow came up who would never be happy unless 
he was quarreling with his nearest neighbours, or when 
there was some class-dispute, between the fifth-form 
and the fags for instance, which required blood- 


264 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


letting ; and a champion was picked out on each side 
tacitly, who settled the matter by a good hearty mill. 
But for the most part the constant use of those 
surest keepers of the peace, the boxing-gloves, 
kept the School-house boys from fighting one 
another. Two or three nights in every week 
the gloves were brought out, either in the hall 
or fifth-form room ; and every boy who was ever 
likely to fight at all knew all his neighbours’ prowess 
perfectly well, and could tell to a nicety what chance 
he would have in a stand-up fight with any other boy 
in the house. But of course no such experience 
could be gotten as regarded boys in other houses ; 
and as most of the other houses were more or less 
jealous of the School-house, collisions were frequent. 

After all, what would life be without fighting, I 
should like to know ? From the cradle to the grave, 
fighting, rightly understood, is the business, the real, 
highest, honestest business of every son of man. 
Every one who is worth his salt has his enemies, who 
must be beaten, be they evil thoughts and habits in 
himself, or spiritual wickedness in high places, or 
Russians, or Border-ruffians, or Bill, Tom, or Harry, 
who will not let him live his life in quiet till he has 
thrashed them. 

It is no good for Quakers, or any other body of 
men, to uplift their voices against fighting. Human 
nature is too strong for them, and they don’t follow 
their own precepts. Every soul of them is doing his 
own piece of fighting, somehow and somewhere. The 
world might be a better world without fighting, for 
anything I know, but it wouldn’t be our world ; and 
therefore I am dead against crying peace when there 
is no peace, and isn’t meant to be. I am as sorry as 
any man to see folk fighting the wrong people and 


//OlV THE FIGHT AROSE. 


265 

the wrong things, but I’d a deal sooner see them 
doing that, than that they should have no fight in 
them. So having recorded, and being about to 
record, my hero’s fights of all sorts, with all sorts 
of enemies, I shall how proceed to give an account 
of his passage-at-arms with the only one of his school- 
fellows whom he ever had to encounter in this 
manner. 

It was drawing towards the close of Arthur’s first 
half-year, and the May evenings were lengthening 
out. Locking-up was not till eight o’clock, and 
everybody was beginning to talk about what he 
would do in the holidays. The shell, in which form 
all our dramatis personae now are, were reading 
amongst other things the last book of Homer’s 
“ Iliad,” and had worked through it as far as the 
speeches of the women over Hector’s body. It is a 
whole school-day, and four or five of the School- 
house boys (amongst whom are Arthur, Tom, and 
East) are preparing third lesson together. They have 
finished the regulation forty lines, and are for the 
most part getting very tired, notwithstanding the ex- 
quisite pathos of Helen’s lamentation. And now 
several long four-syllabled words come together, and 
the boy with the dictionary strikes work. 

“I am not going to look out any more words,” 
says he; ‘‘we’ve done the quantity. Ten to one we 
shan’t get so far. Let’s go out into the close.” 

“ Come along, boys,” cries East, always ready to 
leave the grind, as he called it; “our old coach is 
laid up, you know, and we shall have one of the new 
masters, who’s sure to go slow and let us down 
easy.” 

So an adjournment to the close was carried nem. 
con.y little Arthur not daring to uplift his voice; but. 


266 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


being deeply interested in what they were reading, 
stayed quietly behind, and learnt on for his own 
pleasure. 

As East had said, the regular master of the form 
was unwell, and they were to be heard by one of the 
new masters, quite a young man, who had only just 
left the university. Certainly it would be hard lines, 
if, by dawdling as much as possible in coming in 
and taking their places, entering into long-winded 
explanations of what was the usual course of the 
regular master of the form, and others of the stock 
contrivances of boys for wasting time in school, they 
could not spin out the lesson so that he should not 
work them through more than the forty lines ; as to 
which quantity there was a perpetual fight going on 
between the master and his form, the latter insisting, 
and enforcing by passive resistance, that it was the 
prescribed quantity of Homer for a shell lesson, the 
former that there was no fixed quantity, but that 
they must always be ready to go on to fifty or sixty 
lines if there were time within the hour. However, 
notwithstanding all their efforts, the new master got 
on horribly quick ; he seemed to have the bad taste 
to be really interested in the lesson, and to be trying 
to work them up into something like appreciation of 
it, giving them good spirited English words, instead 
of the wretched bald stuff into which they rendered 
poor old Homer; and construing over each piece 
himself to them, after each boy, to show them how 
it should be done. 

Now the clock strikes the three-quarters ; there is 
only a quarter of an hour more ; but the forty lines 
„ are all but done. So the boys, one after another, 
who are called up, stick more and more, and make 
balder and ever more bald work of it. The poor 


HVIV THE FIGHT A FOSE. 267 

young master is pretty near beat by this time, and 
feels ready to knock his head against the wall, or his 
fingers against somebody else’s head. So he gives 
up altogether the lower and middle parts of the form, 
and looks round in despair at the boys on the top 
bench, to see if there is one out of whom he can 
strike a spark or two, and who will be too chivalrous 
to murder the most beautiful utterances of the most 
beautiful woman of the old world. His eye rests on 
Arthur, and he calls him up to finish construing Hel- 
en’s speech. Whereupon all the other boys draw 
long breaths, and begin to stare about and take it 
easy. They are all safe ; Arthur is the head of the 
form, and sure to be able to construe, and that will 
tide on safely till the hour strikes. 

Arthur proceeds to read out the passage in Greek 
before construing it, as the custom is. Tom, who 
isn’t paying much attention, is suddenly caught by 
the falter in his voice as he reads the two lines — 

a^Aa (jv Tov 7’ tTZEtaat irapatcpdjuevog KaripvKeg^ 

2^ r’ dyavo<l>poavvy koI aolg ayavolg eTzeeaaiv. 

He looks up at Arthur. “ Why, bless us,” thinks he, 
what can be the matter with the young un ? He’s 
never going to get floored. He’s sure to have learnt 
to the end.” Next moment he is reassured by the 
spirited tone in which Arthur begins construing, and 
betakes himself to drawing dogs’ heads in his note- 
book, while the master, evidently enjoying the 
change, turns his back on the middle bench and 
stands before Arthur, beating a sort of time with his 
hand and foot, and saying, “Yes, yes,” “very 
well,” as Arthur goes on. 

But as he nears the fatal two lines, Tom catches 
that falter and again looks up. He sees that there is 


268 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


something the matter — Arthur can hardly get on at 
all. What can it be? 

Suddenly at this point Arthur breaks down alto- 
gether, and fairly bursts out crying, and dashes the 
cuff of his jacket across his eyes, blushing up to the 
roots of his hair, and feeling as if he should like to go 
down suddenly through the floor. The whole form 
are taken aback ; most of them stare stupidly at him, 
while those who are gifted with presence of mind 
find their places and look steadily at their books, in 
hopes of not catching the master’s eye and getting 
called up in Arthur’s place. 

The master looks puzzled for a moment, and then 
seeing, as the fact is, that the boy is really affected 
to tears by the most touching thing in Homer, per- 
haps in all profane poetry put together, steps up to 
him and lays his hand kindly on his shoulder, saying, 

Never mind, my little man, you’ve construed very 
well. Stop a minute, there’s no hurry.” 

Now, as luck would have it, there sat next above 
Tom that day, in the middle bench of the form, a 
big boy, by name Williams, generally supposed to be 
the cock of the shell, therefore of all the school be- 
low the fifths. The small boys, who are great specu- 
lators on the prowess of their elders, used to hold 
forth to one another about Williams’s great strength, 
and to discuss whether East or Brown would take a 
licking from him. He was called Slogger Williams, 
from the force with which it was supposed he could 
hit. In the main, he was a rough good-natured 
fellow enough, but very much alive to his own dig- 
nity. He reckoned himself the king of the form, 
and kept up his position with a . strong hand, es- 
pecially in the matter of forcing boys not to •con- 
strue more than the legitimate forty lines. He had 


BO IV THE FIGHT AROSE. 


269 

already grunted and grumbled to ‘himself, when 
Arthur went on reading beyond the forty lines. But 
now that he had broken down just in the middle of 
all the long words, the Slogger’s wrath was fairly 
roused. 

^‘Sneaking little brute,” muttered he, regardless 
of prudence, clapping on the waterworks just in 
the hardest place ; see if I don’t punch his head 
after fourth lesson.” 

“Whose?” said Tom, to whom the remark 
seemed to be addressed. 

“Why, that little sneak Arthur’s,” replied Wil- 
liams. 

“ No, you shan’t,” said Tom. 

“Hullo!” exclaimed Williams, looking at Tom 
with great surprise for a moment, and then giving 
him a sudden dig in the ribs with his elbow, which 
sent Tom’s books flying on the floor, and called the 
attention of the master, who turned suddenly round, 
and seeing the state of things, said — 

“ Williams, go down three places, and then go 
on.” 

The Slogger found his legs very slowly, and pro- 
ceeded to go below Tom and two other boys with 
great disgust, and then, turning round and facing 
the master, said, “I haven’t learnt anymore, sir; 
our lesson is only forty lines.” 

“ Is that so ? ” said the master, appealing generally 
to the top bench. No answer. 

“Who is the head boy of the form?” said he, 
waxing wroth. 

“Arthur, sir,” answered three or four boys, in- 
dicating our friend. 

“ Oh, your name’s Arthur. Well now, what is 
the length of your regular lesson ? ” 


270 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


Arthur hesitated a moment, and then said, We 
call it only forty lines, sir.” 

How do you mean, you call it ? ” 

^‘Well, sir, Mr. Graham says we ain’t to stop 
there, when there’s time to construe more.” 

“ I understand,” said the master. “Williams, go 
down three more places, and write me out the lesson 
in Greek and English. And now, Arthur, finish 
construing.” 

“ Oh ! would I be in Arthur’s shoes after 
fourth lesson?” said the little boys to one another; 
but Arthur finished Helen’s speech without any 
further catastrophe, and the clock struck four, which 
ended third lesson. 

Another hour was occupied in preparing and say- 
ing fourth lesson, during which Williams was bottling 
up his wrath ; and when five struck, and the lessons 
for the day were over, he prepared to take summary 
vengeance on the innocent cause of his misfortune. 

Tom was detained in school a few minutes after 
the rest, and on coming out into the quadrangle, the 
first thing he saw was a small ring of boys, applaud- 
ing Williams, who was holding Arthur by the collar. 

“ There, you young sneak,” said he, giving Arthur 
a cuff on the head with his other hand, “ what made 
you say that ” — 

“ Hullo ! ” said Tom ; shouldering into the crowd, 
“you drop that, Williams ; you shan’t touch him.” 

“Who’ll stop me?” said the Slogger, raising his 
hand again. 

“I,” said Tom; and suiting the action to the 
word, struck the arm which held Arthur’s arm so 
sharply, that the Slogger dropped it with a start, and 
turned the full current of his wrath on Tom. 

“ Will you fight ? ” 


THE PEELING. 


271 


Yes, of course.” 

“Huzza, there’s going to be a fight between 
Slogger Williams and Tom Brown ! ” 

The news ran like wild-fire about, and many boys 
who were on their way to tea at their several houses 
turned back, and sought the back of the chapel, 
where the fights come off. 

“Just run and tell East to come and back me,” 
said Tom to a small School-house boy, who was off 
like a rocket to Harrowell’s, just stopping for a 
moment to poke his head into the School-house hall, 
where the lower boys were already at tea, and sing 
out, “ Fight ! Tom Brown and Slogger Williams.” 

Up start half the boys at once, leaving bread, 
eggs, butter, sprats, and all the rest to take care of 
themselves. The greater part of the remainder fol- 
low in a minute, after swallowing their tea, carrying 
their food in their hands to consume as they go. 
Three or four only remain, who steal the butter of 
the more impetuous, and make to themselves an 
unctuous feast. 

In another minute East and Martin tear through 
the quadrangle carrying a sponge, and arrive at the 
scene of action just as the combatants are beginning 
to strip. 

Tom felt he had got his work cut out for him, as 
he stripped off his jacket, waistcoat, and braces. 
East tied his handkerchief round his waist, and 
rolled up his shirt-sleeves for him : “ Now, old boy, 
don’t you open your mouth to say a word, or try to 
help yourself a bit, we’ll do all that ; you keep all 
your breath and strength for the Slogger.” Martin 
meanwhile folded the clothes, and put them under 
the chapel rails; and now Tom, with East to handle 
him and Martin to give him a knee, steps out on the 


272 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS 


turf, and is ready for all that may come : and here is 
the Slogger too, all stripped, and thirsting for the 
fray. 

It doesn’t look a fair match at first glance : 
Williams is nearly two inches taller, and probably a 
long year older than his opponent, and he is very 
strongly made about the arms and shoulders; “ peels 
well,” as the little knot of big fifth-form boys, the 
amateurs, say; who stand outside the ring of little 
boys, looking complacently on, but taking no active 
part in the proceedings. But down below he is not 
so good by any means ; no spring from the loins, and 
feebleish, not to say shipwrecky, about the knees. 
Tom, on the contrary, though not half so strong in 
the arms, is good all over, straight, hard, and springy 
from neck to ankle, better perhaps in his legs than 
anywhere. Besides, you can see by the clear white 
of his eye and fresh bright look of his skin, that he 
is in tip-top training, able to do all he knows ; while 
the Slogger looks rather sodden, as if he didn’t take 
much exercise and ate too much tuck. The time- 
keeper is chosen, a large ring made, and the two 
stand up opposite one another for a moment, giving 
us time just to make our little observations. 

“ If Tom’ll only condescend to fight with his head 
and heels,” as East mutters to Martin, we shall do.” 

But seemingly he won’t, for there he goes in, mak- 
ing play with both hands. Hard all, is the word ; 
the two stand to one another like men ; rally follows 
rally in quick succession, each fighting as if he 
thought to finish the whole thing out of hand. 

Can’t last at this rate,” say the knowing ones, 
while the partisans of each make the air ring with 
their shouts and counter-shouts, of encouragement, 
approval, and defiance. 


EARLY ROUNDS. 


273 


Take it easy, take it easy — keep away, let him 
come after you,” implores East, as he wipes Tom’s 
face after the first round with wet sponge, while he 
sits back on Martin’s knee, supported by the Mad- 
man’s long arms, which tremble a little from excite- 
jnent. 

Time’s up,” calls the time-keeper. 

There he goes again, hang it all ! ” growls East 
as his man is at it again as hard as ever. A very 
severe round follows, in which Tom gets out and 
out the worst of it, and is at last hit clean off his 
legs, and deposited on the grass by a right-hander 
from the Slogger. 

Loud shouts rise from the boys of Slogger’s house, 
and the School-house are silent and vicious, ready to 
pick quarrels anywhere. 

“ Two to one in half-crowns on the big un,” says 
Rattle, one of the amateurs, a tall fellow, in thunder- 
and-lightning waistcoat, and puffy, good-natured 
face. 

“ Done ! ” says Groove, another amateur of quieter 
look, taking out his note-book to enter it — for our 
friend Rattle sometimes forgets these little things. 

Meantime East is freshening up Tom with the 
sponges for next round, and has set two other boys 
to rub his hands. 

‘‘Tom, old boy,” whispers he, “this maybe fun 
for you, but it’s death to me. He’ll hit all the fight 
out of you in another five minutes, and then I shall 
go and drown myself in the island ditch. Feint 
him — use your legs ! — draw him about ! he’ll lose 
his wind then in no time, and you can go into him. 
Hit at his body too, we’ll take care of his frontis- 
• piece by and by.” 

Tom felt the wisdom of the counsel, and saw 
18 


274 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


already that he couldn’t go in and finish the Slogger 
off at mere hammer and tongs, so changed his tactics 
completely in the third round. He now fights 
cautious, getting away from and parrying the 
Slogger’s lunging hits, instead of trying to counter, 
and leading his enemy a dance all round the ring 
after him. “He’s funking; go in, Williams,” 
“Catch him up,” “Finish him off,” scream the 
small boys of the Slogger party. 

“Just what we want,” thinks East, chuckling to 
himself, as he sees Williams, excited by these shouts 
and thinking the game in his own hands, blowing 
himself in his exertions to get to close quarters 
again, while Tom is keeping away with perfect ease. 

They quarter over the ground again and again, 
Tom always on the defensive. 

The Slogger pulls up at* last for a moment, fairly 
blown. 

“Now then, Tom,” sings out East, dancing with 
delight. Tom goes in in a twinkling, and hits two 
heavy body blows, and gets away again before the 
Slogger can catch his wind ; which when he does he 
rushes with blind fury at Tom, and being skilfully 
parried and avoided, over-reaches himself and falls 
on his face, amidst terrific cheers from the School- 
house boys. 

“Double your two to one?” says Groove to 
Rattle, note-book in hand. 

“ Stop a bit,” says that hero, looking uncomfort- 
ably at Williams, who is puffing away on his second’s 
knee, winded enough, but little the worse in any 
other way. 

After another round the Slogger too seems to see 
that he can’t go in and win right off, and has met his* 
match or thereabouts. So he too begins to use his 


STEAD y ALL. 


275 

head, and tries to make Tom lose patience and come 
in before his time. And so the fight sways on, now 
one, and now the other, getting a triflipg pull. 

Tom’s face begins to look very one-sided — there 
are little queer bumps on his forehead, and his mouth 
is bleeding ; but East keeps the wet sponge going so 
scientifically, that he comes up looking as fresh and 
bright as ever. Williams is only slightly marked in 
the face, but by the nervous movement of his elbows 
you can see that Tom’s body blows are telling. In 
fact, half the vice of the Slogger’s hitting is neutral- 
ized, for he daren’t lunge out freely for fear of ex- 
posing his sides. It is too interesting by this time 
for much shouting, and the whole ring is very quiet. 

“All right, Tommy,” whispers East; “hold on’s 
the horse that’s to win. We’ve got the last. Keep 
your head, old boy.” 

But where is Arthur all this time? Words cannot 
paint the poor little fellow’s distress. He couldn’t 
muster courage to come up to the ring, but wandered 
up and down from the great fives’-court to the corner 
of the chapel rails. Now trying to make up his mind 
to throw himself between them, and try to stop 
them ; then thinking of running in and telling his 
friend Mary, who he knew would instantly report to 
the Doctor. The stories he had heard of men being 
killed in prize-fights rose up horribly before him. 

Once only, when the shouts of “ Well done. 
Brown!” “Huzza for the School-house!” rose 
higher than ever, he ventured up to the ring, think- 
ing the victory was won. Catching sight of Tom’s 
face in the state I have described, all fear of conse- 
quences vanishing out of his mind, he rushed straight 
off to the matron’s room, beseeching her to get the 
fight stopped, or he should die. 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


276 

But it’s time for us to get back to the close. 
What is this fierce tumult and confusion ? The ring 
is broken, and high and angry words are being ban- 
died about; ‘‘It’s all fair,” — “It isn’t,” — “No 
hugging;” the fight is stopped. The combatants, 
however, sit there quietly, tended by their seconds, 
while their adherents wrangle in the middle. 
East can’t help shouting challenges to two or three 
of the other side, though he never leaves Tom for a 
moment, and plies the sponges as fast as ever. 

The fact is, that at the end of the last round, 
Tom seeing a good opening, had closed with his oppo- 
nent, and after a moment’s struggle had thrown him 
heavily, by the help of the fall he had learnt from his 
village rival in the vale of White Horse. Williams 
hadn’t the ghost of a chance with Tom at wrestling; 
and the conviction broke at once on the Slogger fac- 
tion, that if this were allowed their man must be licked. 
There was a strong feeling in the school against catch- 
ing hold and throwing, though it was generally ruled 
all fair within certain limits ; so the ring was broken 
and the fight stopped. 

The School-house are over-ruled — the fight is. on 
again, but there is to be no throwing; and East in 
high wrath threatens to take his man away after next 
round (which he don’t mean to do, by the way), 
when suddenly young Brooke comes through the 
small gate at the end of the chapel. The School- 
house faction rush to him. “Oh, hurra! now we 
shall get fair play.” 

“Please, Brooke, come up, they won’t let Tom 
Brown throw him.” 

“Throw whom? ” says Brooke, coming up to the 
ring. “Oh I Williams, I see. Nonsense ! of course 


THE LAST ROUND. 


277 


he may throw him if he catches him fairly above the 
waist.” 

Now, young Brooke, you’re in the sixth, you 
know, and you ought to stop all fights. He looks 
hard at both boys. “ Anything wrong ? ” says he to 
East, nodding at Tom. 

“ Not a bit.” 

“ Not beat at all ? ” 

“ Bless you, no ! heaps of fight in him. Ain’t 
there, Tom ? ” 

Tom looks at Brooke and grins. 

“ How’s he?” nodding at Williams. 

“So, so; rather done, I think, since his last fall. 
He won’t stand above two more.” 

“Time’s up ! ” the boys rise again and face one 
another. Brooke can’t find it in his heart to stop 
them just yet, so the round goes on, the Slogger 
waiting for Tom, and reserving all his strength to 
hit him out should he come in for the wrestling 
dodge again, for he feels that that must be stopped, 
or his sponge will soon go up in the air. 

And now another new comer appears on the field, 
to wit, the under-porter, with his long brush and 
great wooden receptacle for dust under his arm. 
He has been sweeping out the schools. 

“You’d better stop, gentlemen,” he says; “the 
Doctor knows that Brown’s fighting — he’ll be out 
in a minute.” 

“ You go to Bath, Bill,” is all that that excellent 
servitor gets by his advice. And being a man of his 
hands, and a staunch upholder of the School-house, 
can’t help stopping to look on for a bit, and see 
Tom Brown, their pet craftsman, fight a round. 

It is grim earnest now, and no mistake. Both 
boys feel this, and summon every power of head, 


278 tom BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 

hand, and eye to their aid. A piece of luck on 
either side, a foot slipping, a blow getting well 
home, or another fall, may decide it. Tom works 
slowly round for an opening ; he has all the legs, 
and can choose his own time : the Slogger waits for 
the attack, and hopes to finish it by some heavy 
right-handed blow. As they quarter slowly over the 
ground, the evening sun comes out from behind a 
cloud and falls full on Williams’s face. Tom darts 
in ; the heavy right-hand is delivered, but only 
grazes his head. A short rally at close quarters, and 
they close ; in another moment the Slogger is thrown 
again heavily for the third time. 

“I’ll give you three to two on the little one in 
half-crowns,” said Groove to Rattle. 

“No, thank’ee,” answers the other, diving his 
hands further into his coat-tails. 

Just at this stage of the proceedings, the door of 
the turret which leads to the Doctor’s library suddenly 
opens, and he steps into the close, and makes straight 
for the ring, in which Brown and the Slogger are 
both seated on their seconds’ knees for the last time. 

“The Doctor! the Doctor!” shouts some small 
boy who catches sight of him, and the ring melts 
away in a few seconds, the small boys tearing off, Tom 
collaring his jacket and waistcoat, and slipping 
through the little gate by the chapel, and round the 
corner to Harrowell’s with his backers, as lively as 
need be ; Williams anjd his backers making off not 
quite so fast across the close ; Groove, Rattle, and 
the other bigger fellows trying to combine dignity 
and prudence in a comical manner, and walking off 
fast enough, they hope, not to be recognised, and 
not fast enough to look like running away. 

Young Brooke alone remains on the ground by the 


THE DOCTOR'S ARRIVES. 


279 

time the Doctor gets there, and touches his hat, not 
without a slight inward qualm. 

“ Hah ! Brooke. I am surprised to see you here. 
Don’t you know that I expect the sixth to stop fight- 
ing?” 

Brooke felt much more uncomfortable than he had 
expected, but he was rather a favourite with the Doc- 
tor for his openness and plainness of speech ; so 
blurted out, as he walked by the Doctor’s side, who 
had already turned back — 

“Yes, sir, generally. But I thought you wished 
us to exercise a discretion in the matter too — not to 
interfere too soon.” 

“But they have been fighting this half-hour and 
more,” said the Doctor. 

“Yes, sir; but neither was hurt. And they’re 
the sort of boys who’ll be all the better friends now, 
which they wouldn’t have been if they had been 
stopped any earlier — before it was so equal.” 

“Who was fighting with Brown?” said the 
Doctor. 

“Williams, sir, of Thompson’s. He is bigger 
than Brown, and had the best of it at first, but not 
when you came up, sir. There’s a good deal of jeal- 
ousy between our house and Thompson’s, and there 
would have been more fights if this hadn’t been let 
go on, or if either of them had had much the worst 
of it.” 

“Well but, Brooke,” said the Doctor, “doesn’t 
this look a little as if you exercised your discretion 
by only stopping a fight when the School-house boy 
is getting the worst of it ? ” 

Brooke, it must be confessed, felt rather gravelled. 

“ Remember,” added the Doctor, as he stopped at 
the turret-door, “this fight is not to go on — you’ll 


28 o 


TOM BROV/N^S SCHOOL DAYS. 


see to that. And I expect you to stop all fights in 
future at once.” 

Very well, sir,” said young Brooke, touching his 
hat, and not sorry to see the turret-door close behind 
the Doctor’s back. 

Meantime Tom and the staunchest of his adherents 
had reached Harrowell’s, and Sally was bustling 
about to get them a late tea, while Stumps had been 
sent off to Tew the butcher, to get a piece of raw 
beef for Tom’s eye, which was to be healed off-hand, 
so that he might show well in the morning. He was 
not a bit the worse except a slight difficulty in his 
vision, a singing in his ears, and a sprained thumb, 
which he kept in a cold-water bandage, while he 
drank lots of tea, and listened to the Babel of voices 
talking and speculating of nothing but the fight, and 
how Williams would have given in after another fall 
(which he didn’t in the least believe), and how on 
earth the Doctor could have got to know of it, — such 
bad luck ! He couldn’t help thinking to himself that 
he was glad he hadn’t won ; he liked it better as it 
was, and felt very friendly to the Slogger. And then 
poor little Arthur crept in and sat down quietly near 
him, and kept looking at him and the raw beef with 
such plaintive looks, that Tom at last burst out laugh- 
ing. 

“ Don’t make such eyes, young un,” said he, 
‘Hhere’s nothing the matter.” 

“ Oh but, Tom, are you much hurt ? I can’t bear 
thinking it was all for me.” 

“ Not a bit of it, don’t flatter yourself. We were 
sure to have had it out sooner or later.” 

“Well, but you won’t go on, will you? You’ll 
promise me you won’t go on ? ” 

“ Can’t tell about that — all depends on the houses. 


THE SHAKE-HANDS. 


281 


We’re in the hands of our countrymen, you know. 
Must fight for the School-house flag, if so be.” 

However, the lovers of the science were doomed 
to disappointment this time. Directly after locking- 
up, one of the night-fags knocked at Tom’s door. 

“Brown, young Brooke wants you in the sixth- 
form room.” 

Up went Tom to the summons, and found the 
magnates sitting at their supper. 

“Well, Brown,” said young Brooke, nodding tO' 
him, “ how do you feel ? ” 

“ Oh, very well, thank you, only I’ve sprained my 
thumb, I think.” 

“ Sure to do that in a fight. Well, you hadn’t the 
worst of it, I could see. Where did you learn that 
throw ? ” 

“ Down in the country, when I was a boy.” 

“Hullo! why what are you now? Well, never 
mind, you’re a plucky fellow. Sit down and have 
some supper.” 

Tom obeyed, by no means loth. And the fifth- 
form boy next him filled him a tumbler of bottled- 
beer, and he ate and drank, listening to the pleasant 
talk, and wondering how soon he should be in the 
fifth, and one of that much-envied society. 

As he got up to leave, Brooke said, “You must 
shake hands to-morrow morning ; I shall come and 
see that done after first lesson.” 

And so he did. And Tom and the Slogger shook 
hands with great satisfaction and mutual respect. 
And for the next year or two, whenever fights were 
being talked of, the small boys who had been present 
shook their heads wisely, saying, “Ah! but you 
should just have seen the fight between Slogger Wil- 
liams and Tom Brown ! ” 


282 


TOM BROIVN^S SCHOOL DAYS. 


And now, boys all, three words before we quit the 
subject. I have put in this chapter on fighting of 
malice prepense, partly because I want to give you a 
true picture of what every-day school life was in my 
time, and not a kid-glove and go-to-meeting-coat 
picture ; and partly because of the cant and twaddle 
that’s talked of boxing and fighting with fists now-a- 
days. Even Thackeray has given in to it ; and only 
a few weeks ago there was some rampant stuff in the 
Times on the subject, in an article on field sports. 

Boys will quarrel, and when they quarrel will 
sometimes fight. Fighting with fists is the natural 
and English way for English boys to settle their 
quarrels. What substitute for it is there, or ever 
was there, amongst any nation under the sun? What 
would you like to see take its place ? 

Learn to box, then, as you learn to play cricket 
and football. Not one of you will be the worse, but 
very much the better for learning to box well. Should 
you never have to use it in earnest, there’s no exer- 
cise in the world so good for the temper, and for the 
muscles of the back and legs. 

As to fighting, keep out of it if you can, by all 
means. When the time comes, if it ever should, 
that you have to say ‘‘Yes” or “No” to a chal- 
lenge to fight, say “ No ” if you can, — only take 
care you make it clear to yourselves why you say 
“ No.” It’s a proof of the highest courage, if done 
from true Christian motives. It’s quite right and 
justifiable, if done from a simple aversion to physical 
pain and danger. But don’t say “No” because 
you fear a licking, and say or think it’s because you 
fear God, for that’s neither Christian nor honest. 
And if you do fight, fight it out ; and don’t give in 
while you can stand and see. 


PROGRESS. 


283 


CHAPTER VI. 

FEVER IN THE SCHOOL. 

T WO years have passed since the events recorded 
in the last chapter, and the end of the summer 
half-year is again drawing on. Martin has left 
and gone on a cruise in the South Pacific, in one of 
his uncle’s ships; the old magpie, as disreputable as 
ever, his last bequest to Arthur, lives in the joint 
study. Arthur is nearly sixteen, and is at the head 
of the twenty, having gone up the school at the rate 
of a form a half-year. East and Tom have been 
much more deliberate in their progress, and are only 
a little way up the. fifth form. Great strapping boys 
they are, but still thorough boys, filling about the 
same place in the House that young Brooke filled 
when they were new boys, and much the same sort 
of fellows. Constant intercourse with Arthur has 
■ done much for both of them, especially for Tom; 
but much remains yet to be done, if they are to get 
all the good out of Rugby which is to be got there 
in these times. Arthur is still frail and delicate, with 
more spirit than body; but, thanks to his intimacy 
with them and Martin, has learned to swim, and 
run, and play cricket, and has never hurt himself by 
too much reading. 

One evening, as they were all sitting down to 
supper in the fifth-form room, some one started a 
report that a fever had broken out at one of the 
boarding-houses; “they say,” he added, “that 
Thompson is very ill, and that Dr. Robertson has 
been sent for from Northampton.” 

“ Then we shall all be sent home,” cried another. 


284 TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 

Hurrah ! five weeks’ extra holidays, and no fifth- 
form examination ! ” 

“I hope not,” said Tom ; ‘‘ there’ll be no Maryle- 
bone match then at the end of the half.” 

Some thought one thing, some another, many 
didn’t believe the report ; but the next day, Tuesday, 
Dr. Robertson arrived, and stayed all ^ay, and had 
long conferences with the Doctor. 

On Wednesday morning, after prayers, the Doctor 
addressed the whole School. There were several 
cases of fever in different houses, he said ; but Dr. 
Robertson, after the most careful examination, had 
assured him that it was not infectious, and that if 
proper care were taken, there could be no reason for 
stopping the school work at present. The examina- 
tions were just coming on, and it would be very un- 
advisable to break-up now. However, any boys who 
chose to do so were at liberty to write home, and, if 
their parents wished it, to leave at once. He should 
send the whole School home if the fever spread. 

The next day Arthur sickened, but there was no 
other case. Before the end of the week thirty or 
forty boys had gone, but the rest stayed on. There 
was a general wish to please the Doctor, and a feel- 
ing that it was cowardly to run away. 

On the Saturday Thompson died, in the bright 
afternoon, while the cricket-match was going on as 
usual on the big-side ground : the Doctor coming 
from his death-bed, passed along the gravel-walk at 
the side of the close, but no one knew what had 
happened till the next day. At morning lecture it 
began to be rumoured, and by afternoon chapel was 
known generally ; and a feeling of seriousness and 
awe at the actual presence of death among them 
came over the whole School. In all the long years 


THE DOCTOR'S SERMON. 


285 

of his ministry the Doctor perhaps never spoke 
words which sank deeper than some of those in that 
day’s sermon. ‘‘When I came yesterday from visit- 
ing all but the very death-bed of him who has been 
taken from us, and looked around upon all the 
familiar objects and scenes within our own ground, 
where your common amusements were going on, 
with your common cheerfulness and activity, I felt 
there was nothing painful in witnessing that ; it did 
not seem in any way shocking or out of tune with 
those feelings which the sight of a dying Christian 
must be supposed to awaken. The unsuitableness in 
point of natural feeling between scenes of mourning 
and scenes of liveliness did not at all present itself. 
But I did feel that if at that moment any of those 
faults had been brought before me which sometimes 
occur amongst us; had I heard that any of you had 
been guilty of falsehood, or of drunkenness, or of 
any other such sin ; had I heard from any quarter 
the language of profaneness, or of unkindness, or of 
indecency ; had I heard or seen any signs of that 
wretched folly which courts the laugh of fools by 
affecting not to dread evil and not to care for good, 
then the unsuitableness of any of these things with 
the scene I had just quitted would indeed have been 
most intensely painful. And why? Not because 
such things would really have been worse than at any 
other time, but because at such a moment the eyes 
are opened really to know good and evil, because we 
then feel what it is so to live as that death becomes 
an infinite blessing, and what it is so to live also, 
that it were good for us if we had never been born.” 

Tom had gone into chapel in sickening anxiety 
about Arthur, but he came out cheered and strength- 
ened by those grand words, and walked up alone 


286 


TOM BT OWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


to their study. And when he sat down and looked' 
round, and saw Arthur’s straw-hat and cricket- 
jacket hanging on their pegs, and marked all his 
little neat arrangements, not one of which had been 
disturbed, the tears indeed rolled down his cheeks ; 
but they were calm and blessed tears, and he 
repeated to himself, “Yes, Geordie’s eyes are opened 
— he knows what it is so to live as that death be- 
comes an infinite blessing. But do I? Oh, God, 
can I bear to lose him ? ” 

The week passed mournfully away. No more boys 
sickened, but Arthur was reported worse each day, 
and his mother arrived early in the week. Tom 
made many appeals to be allowed to see him, and 
several times tried to get up to the sick-room ; but 
the housekeeper was always in the way, and at last 
spoke to the Doctor, who kindly, but peremptorily, 
forbade him. 

Thompson was buried on the Tuesday ; and the 
burial service, so soothing and grand always, but 
beyond all words solemn when read over a boy’s 
grave to his companions, brought him much comfort, 
and many strange new thoughts and longings. He 
went back to his regular life, and played cricket and 
bathed as usual : it seemed to him that this was the 
right thing to do, and the new thoughts and long- 
ings became more brave and healthy for the effort. 
The crisis came on Saturday, the day week that 
Thompson had died ; and during that long afternoon 
Tom sat in his study reading his Bible and going 
every half-hour to the housekeeper’s room, expecting 
each time to hear that the gentle and brave little 
spirit had gone home. But God had work for 
Arthur to do : the crisis passed — on Sunday evening 
he was declared out of danger ; on Monday he sent 


CONVALESCENCE. 


287 


a message to Tom that he was almost well, had 
changed his room, and was to be allowed to see him 
the next day. 

It was evening when the housekeeper summoned 
him to the sick-room. Arthur was lying on the sofa 
by the open window, through which the rays of the 
western sun stole gently, lighting up his white face 
and golden hair. Tom remembered a German pict- 
ure of an angel which he knew ; often had he 
thought how transparent and golden and spirit-like 
it was ; and he shuddered to think how like it Arthur 
looked, and felt a shock as if his blood had all 
stopped short, as he realized how near the other 
world his friend must have been to look like that. 
Never till that moment had he felt how his little 
chum had twined himself round his heartstrings; 
and as he stole gently across the room and knelt 
down, and put his arm round Arthur’s head on the 
pillow, he felt ashamed and half angry at his own 
red and brown face, and the bounding sense of 
health and power which filled every fibre of his 
body, and made every movement of mere living a 
joy to him. He needn’t have troubled himself ; it 
was this very strength and power so different from 
his own which drew Arthur so to him. 

Arthur laid his thin white hand, on which the blue 
veins stood out so plainly, on Tom’s great brown 
fist, and smiled at him ; and then looked out of the 
window again, as if he couldn’t bear to lose a 
moment of the sunset, into the tops of the great 
feathery elms, round which the rooks were circling 
and clanging, returning in flocks from their evening’s 
foraging parties. The elms rustled, the sparrows in 
the ivy just outside the window chirped and fluttered 
about, quarrelling and making it up again ; the rooks 


288 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


young and old talked in chorus; and the merry 
:shouts of the boys, and the sweet click of the 
cricket-bats, came up cheerily from below. 

‘‘Dear George,” said Tom, “I am so glad to be 
let up to see you at last. I’ve tried hard to come so 
often, but they wouldn’t let me before.” 

“Oh, I know, Tom ; Mary has told me every day 
about you, and how she was obliged to make the 
Doctor speak to you to keep you away. I’m very 
glad you didn’t get up, for you might have caught 
it, and you couldn’t stand being ill with all the 
matches going on. And you’re in the eleven too, I 
hear — I’m so glad.” 

“Yes, ain’t it jolly?” said Tom proudly; “I’m 
ninth too. I made forty at the last pie-match and 
•caught three fellows out. So I was put in above 
Jones and Tucker. Tucker’s so savage, for he was 
head of the twenty-two.” 

“ Well, I think you ought to be higher yet,” said 
Arthur, who was as jealous for the renown of Tom 
in games, as Tom was for his as a scholar. 

“Never mind, I don’t care about cricket or any- 
thing now you’re getting well, Geordie ; and I 
shouldn’t have hurt, I know, if they’d have let me 
• come up, — nothing hurts me. But you’ll get about 
now directly, won’t you? You won’t believe how 
clean I’ve kept the study. All your things are just 
as you left them ; and I feed the old magpie just 
when you used, though I have to come in from big- 
side for him, the old rip. He won’t looked pleased 
all I can do, and sticks his head first on one side and 
then on the other, and blinks at me before he’ll begin 
to eat, till I’m half inclined to box his ears. And 
whenever East comes in, you should see him hop off 


MEMORIES. 289 

to the window, dot and go one, though Harry 
wouldn’t touch a feather of him now.” 

Arthur laughed. “Old Gravey has a good mem- 
ory; he can’t forget the sieges of poor Martin’s den 
in old times.” He paused a moment, and then 
went on. “You can’t think how often I’ve been 
thinking of old Martin since I’ve been ill; I sup- 
pose one’s mind gets restless, and likes to wander off 
to strange unknown places. I wonder what queer 
new pets the old boy has got ; how he must be revel- 
ling in the thousand new birds, beasts, and fishes.” 

Tom felt a pang of jealousy, but kicked it out in a 
moment. “ Fancy him on a South-Sea island, with 
the Cherokees or Patagonians, or some such wild 
niggers;” (Tom’s ethnology and geography were 
faulty, but sufficient for his needs;) “they’ll make 
the old Madman cock medicine-man and tattoo him 
all over. Perhaps he’s cutting about now all blue, 
and has a squaw and a wigwam. He’ll improve their 
boomerangs, and be able to throw them too, without 
having old Thomas sent after him by the Doctor to 
take them away.” 

Arthur laughed at the remembrance of the boom- 
erang story, but then looked grave again, and said, 
“ He’ll convert all the island, I know.” 

“Yes, if he don’t blow it up first.” 

“ Do you remember, Tom, how you and East used 
to laugh at him and chaff him, because he said he was 
sure the rooks all had calling-over or prayers, or 
something of the sort, when the locking-up bell rang? 
Well, I declare,” said Arthur, looking up seriously 
into Tom’s laughing eyes, “ I do think he was right. 
Since I’ve been lying here. I’ve watched them every 
night ; and do you know, they really do come, and 
perch all of them just about locking-up time ; and tlien 

19 


290 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


first there’s a regular chorus of caws, and then they 
stop a bit, and one old fellow, or perhaps two or 
three in different trees, caw solos, and then off they 
all go again, fluttering about and cawing anyhow till 
they roost.” 

‘‘ I wonder if the old blackies do talk,” said Tom, 
looking up at them. How they must abuse me and 
East, and pray for the Doctor for stopping the 
slinging.” 

“ There ! look, look ! ” cried Arthur ; don’t you 
see the old fellow without a tail coming up? Martin 
used to call him the ^ clerk.’ He can’t steer himself. 
You never saw such fun as he is in a high wind, when 
he can’t steer himself home, and gets carried right 
past the trees, and has to bear up again and again 
before he can perch.” 

The locking-up bell began to toll, and the two boys 
were silent, and listened to it. The sound soon car- 
ried Tom off to the river and the woods, and he 
began to go over in his mind the many occasions on 
which he had heard the toll coming faintly down the 
breeze, and had to pack up his rod in a hurry, and 
make a run for it, to get in before the gates were 
shut. He was roused with a start from his memories 
by Arthur’s voice, gentle and weak from his late 
illness. 

Tom, will you be angry if I talk to you very 
seriously ? ” 

‘‘ No, dear old boy, not I. But ain’t you faint, 
Arthur, or ill ? What can I get you ? Don’t say any- 
thing to hurt yourself now — you are very weak ; let 
me come up again.” 

‘^No, no, I shan’t hurt myself: I’d sooner speak 
to you now, if you don’t mind. I’ve asked Mary to 
tell the Doctor that you are with me, so you needn’t 


M0/^£ LESSONS. 


291 


go down to calling-over; and I mayn’t have another 
chance, for I shall most likely have to go home for 
change of air to get well, and mayn’t comeback this 
half.” 

“Oh, do you think you must go away before the 
end of the half? I’m so sorry. It’s more than five 
weeks yet to the holidays, and all the fifth-form ex- 
amination and half the cricket-matches to come yet. 
And what shall I do all that time alone in our study ? 
Why, Arthur, it will be more than twelve weeks be- 
fore I see you again. Oh, hang it, I can’t stand that ! 
Besides, who’s to keep me up to working at the ex- 
amination books? I shall come out bottom of the 
form as sure as eggs is eggs.” 

Tom was rattling on, half in joke, half in earnest, 
for he wanted to get Arthur out of his serious vein, 
thinking it would do him harm; but Arthur broke 
in — 

“Oh, please, Tom, stop, or you’ll drive all I had 
to say out of my head. And I’m already horribly 
afraid I’m going to make you angry.” 

“ Don’t gammon, young un,” rejoined Tom (the 
use of the old name, dear to him from old recollec- 
tions, made Arthur start and smile, and feel quite 
happy); “you know you ain’t afraid, and you’ve 
never made me angry since the first month we 
chummed together. Now I’m going to be quite 
sober for a quarter of an hour, which is more than I 
am once in a year ; so make the most of it ; heave 
ahead, and pitch into me right and left.” 

“Dear Tom, I ain’t going to pitch into you,” 
said Arthur piteously ; “ and it seems so cocky in me 
to be advising you, who’ve been my backbone ever 
since I’ve been at Rugby, and have made the school 
a paradise to me. Ah, I see I shall never do it. 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


292 

unless I go head-over-heels at once, as you said 
when you taught me to swim. Tom, I want you to 
give up using vulgus-books and cribs.” 

Arthur sank back on ,to his pillow with a sigh, as 
if the effort had been great ; but the worst was now 
over, and he looked straight at Tom, who was 
evidently taken aback. He leant his elbows on his 
knees, and stuck his hands into his hair, whistled a 
verse of “ Billy Taylor,” and then was quite silent 
for another minute. Not a shade crossed his face, 
but he was clearly puzzled. At last he looked up 
and caught Arthur’s anxious look, took his hand, 
and said simply — 

‘‘ Why, young un ? ” 

Because you’re the honestest boy in Rugby, and 
that ain’t honest.” 

“ I don’t see that.” 

“ What were you sent to Rugby for? ” 

‘‘Well, I don’t know exactly — nobody ever told 
me. I suppose because all boys are sent to a public 
school in England.” 

“But what do you think yourself? What do you 
want to do here, and to carry away ? ” 

Tom thought a mipute. “ I want to be A i at 
cricket and football, and all the other games, and to 
make my hands keep my head against any fellow, 
lout or gentleman. I want to get into the sixth 
before I leave, and to please the Doctor ; and I want 
to carry away just as much Latin and Greek as will 
take me through Oxford respectably. There now, 
young un., I never thought of it before, but that’s 
pretty much about my figure. Ain’t it all on the 
square ? What have you got to say to that ? ’ ’ 

“ Why, that you are pretty sure to do all that you 
want, then.” 


TOM'S CONFESSIONS. 


293 


‘^Well, I hope so. But you’ve forgot one thing, 
what I want to leave behind me. I want to leave 
behind me,” said Tom, speaking slow, and looking 
much moved, “ the name of a fellow who never 
bullied a little boy, or turned his back on a big 
one.” 

Arthur pressed his hand, and after a moment’s 
silence went on : “ You say, Tom, you want to please 
the Doctor. Now, do you want to please him by 
what he thinks you do, or by what you really do ? ” 

‘‘ By what I really do, of course.” 

“ Does he think you use cribs and vulgus-books ? ” 

Tom felt at once that his flank was turned, but he 
couldn’t give in. “ He was at Winchester himself,” 
said he ; “ he knows all about it.” 

“Yes, but does he think you use them? Do you 
think he approves of it?” 

“You young villain ! ” said Tom, shaking his fist 
at Arthur, lialf vexed . and half pleased, “I never 
think about it. Hang it — there, perhaps he don’t. 
Well, I suppose he don’t.”' 

Arthur saw that he had got his point ; he knew his 
friend well, and was wise in silence, as in speech. He 
only said, “ I would sooner have the Doctor’s good 
opinion of me as I really am than any man’s in the 
world.” 

After another minute, Tom began again: “Look 
here, young un ; how on earth am I to get time to 
play the matches this half, if I give up cribs ? We’re 
in the middle of that long crabbed chorus in the 
‘ Agamemnon ; ’ I can only just make head or tail 
of it with the crib. Then there’s Pericles’ speech 
coming on in Thucydides, and ‘ The Birds ’ to get up 
for the examination, besides the Tacitus.” Tom 
groaned at the thought of his accumulated labours. 


294 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


say, young un, there’s only five weeks or so left 
to holidays; mayn’t I go on as usual for this half? 
I’ll tell the Doctor about it some day, or you may.” 

Arthur looked out of window ; the twilight had 
come on and all was silent. He repeated, in a low 
voice, “ In this thing the Lord pardon thy servant, 
that when my master goeth into the house of Rim- 
mon to worship there, and he leaneth on my hand, 
and I bow myself in the house of Rimmon : when I 
bow down myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord 
pardon thy servant in this thing.” 

Not a word more was said on the subject, and the 
boys were again silent — one of those blessed, short 
silences in which the resolves which colour a life are 
so often taken. 

Tom was the first to break it. You’ve been very 
ill indeed, haven’t you, Geordie ? ” said he, with a 
mixture of awe and curiosity, feeling as if his friend 
had been in some strange place or scene, of which he 
could form no idea, and full of the memory of his 
own thoughts during the last week. 

“Yes, very. I’m sure the Doctor thought I was 
going to die. He gave me the sacrament last Sunday, 
and you can’t think what he is when one is ill. He 
said such brave, and tender, and gentle things to me ; 
I felt quite light and strong after it, and never had 
any more fear. My mother brought our old medical 
man, who attended me when I was a poor sickly 
child ; he said my constitution was quite changed, 
and that I’m fit for anything now. If it hadn’t, I 
couldn’t have stood three days of this illness. That’s 
all thanks to you, and the games you’ve made me 
fond of.” 

“More thanks to old Martin,” said Tom ; “he’s 
been your real friend.” 


TOM OUTGENERALLED. 


295 

‘^Nonsense, Tom "he never could have done for 
me what you have.” 

^MVell, I don’t know; I did little enough. Did 
they tell you — you won’t mind hearing it now, I 
know, — that poor Thompson died last week? The 
other three boys are getting quite round, like you.” 

“ Oh, yes, I heard of it.” 

Then Tom, who was quite full of it, told Arthur 
of the burial-service in the chapel, and how it had- 
impressed him, and he believed all the other boys. 
“And though the Doctor never said a word about 
it,” said he, “and it was a half-holiday and match- 
day, there wasn’t a game played in the close all the 
afternoon, and the boys all went about as if it were 
Sunday.” 

“I’m very glad of it,” said Arthur. “ But, Tom, 
I’ve had such strange thoughts about death lately. 
I’ve never told a soul of them, not even my mother. 
Sometimes I think they’re wrong; but, do you know, 
I don’t think in my heart I could be sorry at the 
death of any of my friends.” 

Tom was taken quite aback. “ What in the world 
is the young un after now?” thought he; “I’ve 
swallowed a good many of his crotchets, but this al- 
together beats me. He can’t be quite right in his 
head.” He didn’t want to say a word, and shifted 
about uneasily in the dark ; however, Arthur seemed 
to be waiting for an answer, so at last he said, “ I 
don’t think I quite see what you mean, Geordie. 
One’s told so often to think about death, that I’ve 
tried it on sometimes, especially this last week. But 
we won’t talk of it now. I’d better go — you’re get- 
ting tired, and I shall do you harm.” 

“No, no, indeed I ain’t, Tom ; you must stop till 
nine, there’s only twenty minutes. I’ve settled you 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


296 

shall stop till nine. And oh ! do let me talk to you — 
I must talk to you. I see it’s just as I feared. You 
think I’m half mad — don’t you now?” 

Well, I did think it odd what you said, Geordie, 
as you ask me.” 

Arthur paused a moment, and then said quickly, 
“ I’ll tell you how it all happened. At first, when I 
was sent to the sick-room, and found I had really got 
the fever, I was terribly frightened. I thought I 
should die, and I could not face it for a moment. I 
don’t think it was sheer cowardice at first, but I 
thought how hard it was to be taken away from my 
mother and sisters, and you all, just as I was begin- 
ning to see my way to many things, and to feel that 
I might be a man and do a man’s work. To die 
without having fought, and worked, and given one’s 
life away, was too hard to bear. I got terribly im- 
patient, and accused God of injustice, and strove to 
justify myself; and the harder I strove the deeper I 
sank. Then the image of my dear father often came 
across me, but I turned from it. Whenever it came, 
a heavy numbing throb seemed to take hold of my 
heart and say, ‘Dead — dead — dead.’ And I cried 
out, ‘ The living, the living shall praise Thee, O God ; 
the dead cannot praise Thee. There is no work in 
the grave ; in the night no man can work. But I 
can work. I can do great things. I will do great 
things. Why wilt Thou slay me ? ’ And so I strug- 
gled and plunged, deeper and deeper, and went 
down into a living black tomb. I was alone there, 
with no power to stir or think ; alone with myself ; 
beyond the reach of all human fellowship ; beyond 
Christ’s reach, I thought, in my nightmare. You, 
who are brave and bright and strong, can have no 


ARTHUR'S VISION. 


297 

idea of that agony. Pray to God you never may. 
Pray as for your life.” 

Arthur stopped — from exhaustion, Tom thought ; 
but what between his fear lest Arthur should hurt 
himself, his awe, and longing for him to go on, he 
couldn’t ask, or stir to help him. 

Presently he went on, but quite calm and slow. 
“I don’t know how long I was in that state. For 
more than a day, I know ; for I was quite conscious, 
and lived my outer life all the time, and took my 
medicine, and spoke to my mother, and heard what 
they said. But I didn’t take much note of time; I 
thought time was over for me, and that that tomb 
was what was beyond. Well, on last Sunday morn- 
ing, as I seemed to lie in that tomb, alone, as I 
thought, for ever and ever, the black dead wall was 
cleft in two, and I was caught up and borne through 
into the light by some great power, some living 
mighty spirit. Tom, do you remember the living 
creatures and the wheels in Ezekiel ? It was just like 
that : ‘ when they went I heard the noise of their 
wings, like the noise of great waters, as the voice of 
the Almighty, the voice of speech, as the noise of an 
host ; Avhen they stood they let down their wings’ — 
^ and they went every one straight forward ; whither 
the spirit was to go they went, and they turned not 
when they went.’ And we rushed through the 
bright air, which was full of myriads of living 
creatures, and paused on the brink of a great river. 
And the power held me up, and I knew that that 
great river was the grave, and death dwelt there ; 
but not the death I had met in the black tomb — that 
I felt was gone for ever. For on the other bank of 
the great river I saw men and women and children 
rising up pure and bright, and the tears were wiped 


298 tom BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 

from their eyes, and they put on glory and strength, 
and all weariness and pain fell away. And beyond 
were a multitude which no man could number, and 
they worked at some great work ; and they who rose 
from the river went on and joined in the work. 
They all worked, and each worked in a different 
way, but all at the same work. And I saw there my 
father, and the men in the old town whom I knew 
when I was a child ; many’a hard stern man, who 
never came to church, and whom they called atheist 
and infidel. There they were, side by side with my 
father, whom I had seen toil and die for them, and 
women and little children, and the seal was on the 
foreheads of’ all. And I longed to see what the 
work was, and could not ; so I tried to plunge in the 
river, for I thought I would join them, but I could 
not. Then I looked about to see how they got into 
the river. And this I could not see, but I saw 
myriads on this side, and they too worked, and I 
knew that it was the same work ; and the same seal 
was on their foreheads. And though I saw that 
there was toil and anguish in the work of these, and 
that most that were working were blind and feeble, 
yet I longed no more to plunge into the river, but 
more and more to know what the work was. And as 
I looked I saw my mother and my sisters, and I saw 
the Doctor, and you, Tom, and hundreds more whom 
I knew ; and at last I saw myself too, and I was toil- 
ing and doing ever so little a piece of the great 
work. Then it all melted away, and the power left 
me, and as it left me I thought I heard a voice say, 
‘ The vision is for an appointed time ; though it 
tarry, wait for it, for in the end it shall speak and 
not lie, it shall surely come, it shall not tarry.’ It 
was early morning I know then, it was so quiet and 


ARTHURS S MOTHER. 


299 


cool, and my mother was fast asleep in the chair by 
my bedside ; but it wasn’t only a dream of mine. 
I know it wasn’t a dream. Then I fell into a deep 
sleep, and only woke after afternoon chapel ; and 
the Doctor came and gave me the sacrament, as I 
told you. I told him and my mother I should get 
well — I knew I should ; but I couldn’t tell them why. 
Tom,” said Arthur, gently, after another minute, 
“do you see why I could not grieve now to see my 
dearest friend die? It can’t be — it isn’t, all fever 
or illness. God would never have let me see it so 
clear if it wasn’t true. I don’t understand it at all 
yet — it will take me my life and longer to do that — 
to find out what the work is.” 

When Arthur stopped there was a long pause. 
Tom could not speak, he was almost afraid to breathe, 
lest he should break the train of Arthur’s thoughts. 
He longed to hear more, and to ask questions. In 
another minute nine o’clock struck, and a gentle tap 
at the door called them both back into the world 
again. They did not answer, however, for a moment, 
and so the door opened and a lady came in carrying 
a candle. 

She went straight to the sofa, and took hold of 
Arthur’s hand, and then stooped down and kissed 
him. 

“ My dearest boy, you feel a little feverish again. 
Why didn’t you have lights? You’ve talked too 
much and excited yourself in the dark.” 

“Oh, no, mother; you can’t think how well I 
feel. I shall start with you to-morrow for Devon- 
shire. But, mother, here’s my friend, here’s Tom 
Brown — you know him ? ’ ’ 

“Yes, indeed. I’ve known him for years,” she 
said, and held out her hand to Tom, who was now 


300 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


standing up behind the sofa. This was Arthur’s 
mother. Tall and slight and fair, with masses of 
golden hair drawn back from the broad white fore- 
head, and the calm blue eye meeting his so deep and 
open — the eye that he knew so well, for it was his 
friend’s over again, and the lovely tender mouth that 
trembled while he looked. She stood there a woman 
of thirty-eight, old enough to be his mother, and one 
whose face showed the lines which must be written 
on the faces of good men’s wives and widows^ — but 
he thought he had never seen anything so beautiful. 
He couldn’t help wondering if Arthur’s sisters were 
like her. 

Tom held her hand, and looked on straight in her 
face ; he could neither let it go nor speak. 

‘‘Now, Tom,” said Arthur, laughing, “where are 
your manners? you’ll stare my mother out of coun- 
tenance.” Tom dropped the little hand with a sigh. 
“ There, sit down, both of you. Here, dearest 
mother, there’s room here ; — ” and he made a place 
on the sofa for her. “Tom, you needn’t go ; I’m 
sure you won’t be called up at first lesson.” Tom 
felt that he would risk being floored at every lesson 
for the rest of his natural school-life sooner than go, 
so sat down. “And now,” said Arthur, “I have 
realized one of the dearest wishes of my life — to see 
you two together.” 

And then he led away the talk to their home in 
Devonshire, and the red bright earth, and the deep 
green combes, and the peat streams like cairngorm 
pebbles, and the wild moor with its high cloudy Tors 
for a giant background to the picture — till Tom got 
jealous, and stood up for the clear chalk streams, and 
the emerald water meadows and great elms and wil- 
lows of the dear old Royal county, as he gloried to 


TOM'S REWARDS. 


301 


call it. And the mother sat on quiet and loving, 
rejoicing in their life. The quarter-to-ten struck, 
and the bell rang for bed before they had well begun 
their talk, as it seemed. 

Then Tom rose with a sigh to go. 

“ Shall I see you in the morning, Geordie? ” said 
he, as he shook his friend’s hand. “ Never mind 
though ; you’ll be back next half, and I shan’t forget 
the house of Rimmon.” 

Arthur’s mother got up and walked with him to 
the door, and there gave him her hand again, and 
again his eyes met that deep loving look, which was 
like a spell upon him. Her voice trembled slightly 
as she said, “ Good night — you are one who knows 
what our Father has promised to the friend of the 
widow and the fatherless. May He deal with you 
as you have dealt with me and mine ! ” 

Tom was quite upset; he mumbled something 
about owing everything good in him to Geordie — 
looked in her face again, pressed her hand to his 
lips, and rushed downstairs to his study, where he sat 
till old Thomas came kicking at the door, to tell him 
his allowance would be stopped if he didn’t go off to 
bed. (It would have been stopped anyhow, but that 
he was a great favourite with the old gentleman, who 
loved to come out in the afternoons into the close to 
Tom’s wicket, and bowl slow twisters to him, and 
talk of the glories of bygone Surrey heroes, with 
whom he had played in former generations.) So Tom 
roused himself, and took up his candle to go to bed ; 
and then for the first time was aware of a beautiful 
new fishing-rod, with old Eton’s mark on it, and a 
splendidly bound Bible, which lay on his table, on 
the title-page of which w'as written — “Tom Brown, 


302 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


from his affectionate and grateful friends, Frances 
Jane Arthur; George Arthur.’* 

I leave you all to guess how he slept, and what he 
dreamt of. 

o 

CHAPTER VII. 

HARRY east’s DILEMMAS AND DELIVERANCES. 

T he next morning, after breakfast, Tom, East, 
and Gower met as usual to learn their second 
lesson together. Tom had been considering 
how to break his proposal of giving up the crib to 
the others, and having found no better way (as in- 
deed none better can ever be found by man or boy), 
told them simply what had happened ; how he had 
been to see Arthur, who had talked to him upon the 
subject, and what he had said, and for his part he 
had made up his mind, and wasn’t going to use 
cribs any more : and not being quite sure of his 
ground, took the high and pathetic tone, and was 
proceeding to say, “ how that having learnt his 
lessons with them for so many years, it would grieve 
him much to put an end to the arrangement, and he 
hoped at any rate that if they wouldn’t go on with 
him, they should still be just as good friends, and 
respect one another’s motives — but — ” 

Here the other boys, who had been listening with 
open eyes and ears, burst in — 

“Stuff and nonsense!” cried Gower. “Here, 
East, get down the crib and find the place.” 

“Oh, Tommy, Tommy!” said East, proceeding 
to do as he was bidden, “that it should ever have 
come to this. I knew Arthur’ d be the ruin of you 


TOM SPRINGS HIS MINE. 


303 

some day, and you of me. And now the time’s 
come,” — and he made a doleful face. 

^‘I don’t know about ruin,” answered Tom; “I 
know that you and I would have had the sack long 
ago, if it hadn’t been for him. And you know it as 
well as I.” 

‘‘Well, we were in a baddish way before he came, 
I own ; but this new crotchet of his is past a joke.” 

“Let’s give it a trial, Harry; come — you know 
how often he has been right and we wrong.” 

“ Now, don’t you two be jawing away about young 
Square-toes,” struck in Gower. “ He’s no end of a 
sucking wiseacre, I dare say, but we’ve no time to 
lose, and I’ve got the fives’ -court at half-past nine.” 

“I say, Gower,” said Tom, appealingly, “ be a 
good fellow, and let’s try if we can’t get on without 
the crib.” 

“What! in this chorus? Why, we shan’t get 
through ten lines.” 

“ I say, Tom,” cried East, having hit on a new 
idea, “don’t you remember, when we were in the 
upper fourth, and old Momus caught me construing 
off the leaf of a crib which Td torn out and put in my 
book, and which would float out on to the floor, he 
sent me up to be flogged for it ? ” 

“ Yes, I remember it very well.” 

“ Well, the Doctor, after he’d flogged me, told 
me himself that he didn’t flog me for using a transla- 
tion, but for taking it into lesson, and using it there 
when I hadn’t learnt a word before I came in. He 
said there was no harm in using a translation to get 
a clue to hard passages, if you tried all you could 
first to make them out without.” 

“Did he, though?” said Tom; “then Arthur 
must be wrong.” 


304 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


^‘Of course he is/' said Gower, ‘‘the little prig. 
We’ll only use the crib when we can’t construe with- 
out it. Go ahead, East.” 

And on this agreement they started : Tom satisfied 
with having made his confession, and not sorry to 
have a locus pcenitenticBy and not to be deprived alto- 
gether of the use of his old and faithful friend. 

The boys went on as usual, each taking a sentence 
in turn, and the crib being handed to the one whose 
turn it was to construe. Of course Tom couldn’t 
object to this, as, was it not simply lying there to be 
appealed to in case the sentence should prove too 
hard altogether for the construer? But it must be 
owned that Gower and East did not make very tre- 
mendous exertions to conquer their sentences before 
having recourse to its help. Tom, however, with the 
most heroic virtue and gallantry rushed into his sen- 
tence, searching in a high-minded manner for nomi- 
native and verb, and turning over his dictionary 
frantically for the first hard word that stopped him. 
But in the meantime Gower, who was bent on getting 
to fives, would peep quietly into the crib, and then sug- 
gest, “ Don’t you think this is the meaning?” “ I 
think you must take it this way. Brown ; ” and as Tom 
didn’t see his way to not profiting by these sugges- 
tions, the lesson went on about as quickly as usual, 
and Gower was able to start for the fives’ -court 
within five minutes of the half-hour. 

When Tom and East were left face to face, they 
looked at one another fo/ a minute, Tom puzzled, 
and East chock-full of fun, and then burst into a 
roar of laughter. 

“Well, Tom,” said East, recovering himself, “I 
don’t see any objection to the new way. It’s about 
as good as the old one, I think ; besides the advan- 


THE ENEMY^S DEFENCE. 


305 


tage it gives one of feeling virtuous, and looking 
down on one’s neighbours.” 

Tom shoved his hand into his back hair. “ I ain’t 
so sure,” said he; “ you two fellows carried me off 
my legs; I don’t think we really tried one sentence 
fairly. Are you sure you remember what the Doctor 
said to you ? ” 

“ Yes. And I’ll swear I couldn’t make out one of 
my sentences to-day. No, nor ever could. I really 
don’t remember,” said East, speaking slowly and 
impressively, “to have come across one Latin or 
Greek sentence this half, that I could go and con- 
strue by the light of nature. Whereby I am sure 
Providence intended cribs to be used.” 

“ The thing to find out,” said Tom meditatively, 
“ is how long one ought to grind at a sentence with- 
out looking at the crib. Now I think if one fairly 
looks out all the words one don’t know, and then 
can’t hit it, that’s enougli.” 

“To be sure. Tommy,” said East demurely, but 
with a merry twinkle in his eye. “Your new doc-- 
trine too, old fellow,” added he, “when one comes 
to think of it, is a cutting at the root of all school 
morality. You’ll take away mutual help, brotherly 
love, or in the vulgar tongue, giving construes, 
which I hold to be one of our highest virtues. For 
how can you distinguish between getting a construe 
from another boy, and using a crib? Hang it, Tom, 
if you’re going to deprive all our school-fellows 
of the chance of exercising Christian benevolence 
and being good Samaritans, I shall cut the concern.” 

“I wish you wouldn’t joke about it, Harry; it’s 
hard enough to see one’s way, a precious sight 
harder than I thought last night. But I suppose 
there’s a use and an abuse of both, and one’ll get 


20 


3 o 6 tom BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 

Straight enough somehow. But you can’t make out 
anyhow that one has a right to use old vulgus-books 
and copy-books.” 

“ Hullo, more heresy ! how fast a fellow goes down 
hill when he once gets his head before his legs. 
Listen to me, Tom. Not use old vulgus-books ? — 
why, you Goth ! ain’t we to take the benefit of the 
wisdom, and admire and use the work of past genera- 
tions ? Not use old copy-books ! Why you might as 
well say we ought to pull down Westminster Abbey, 
and put up a go-to-meeting-shop with churchwarden 
windows; or never read Shakespere, but only 
Sheridan Knowles. Think of all the work and 
labour that our predecessors have bestowed on these 
very books ; and are we to make their work of no 
value?” 

“I say, Harry, please don’t chaff; I’m really 
serious.” 

“And then, is it not our duty to consult the 
pleasure of others rather than our own, and above all 
•that of our masters ? Fancy then the difference to 
them in looking over a vulgus which has been care- 
fully touched and retouched by themselves and 
others, and which must bring them a sort of dreamy 
pleasure, as if they’d met the thought or expression 
of it somewhere or another — before they were born 
perhaps ; and that of cutting up, and making picture- 
frames round all your and my false quantities, and 
other monstrosities. Why, Tom, you wouldn’t be so 
cruel as never to let old Momus hum over the ‘ O 
genus humanum,’ again, and then look up doubt- 
ingly through his spectacles, and end by smiling and 
giving three extra marks for it ; just for old sake’s 
sake, I suppose.” 

Well,” said Tom, getting up in something as 


THE ENEMY'S DEFENCE, 


307 


like a huff as he was capable of, “it’s deuced hard 
that when a fellow’s really trying to do what he 
ought, his best friends ’ll do nothing but chaff him 
and try to put him down.” And he stuck his books 
under his arm and his hat on his head, preparatory 
to rushing out into the quadrangle, to testify with 
his own soul of the faithlessness of friendships. 

“ Now don’t be an ass, Tom,” said East, catching 
hold of him, “you know me well enough by this 
time; my bark’s worse than my bite. You can’t ex- 
pect to ride your new crotchet without anybody’s 
trying to stick a nettle under his tail and make him 
kick you off : especially as we shall all have to go on 
foot still. But now sit down and let’s go over it 
again. I’ll be as serious as a judge.” 

Then Tom sat himself down on the table, and 
waxed eloquent about all the righteousness and advan- 
tages of the new plan, as was his wont whenever he 
took up anything ; going into it as if his life depended 
upon it, and sparing no abuse which he could 
think of of the opposite method, which he denounced 
as ungentlemanly, cowardly, mean, lying, and no one 
knows what besides. “Very cool of Tom,” as East 
thought, but didn’t say, “ seeing as how he only came 
out of Egypt himself last night at bed-time. 

“ Well, Tom,” said he at last, “ you see, when you 
and I came to school there were none of these sort of 
notions. You may be right — I dare say you are. 
Only what one has always felt about the masters is, 
that it’s a fair trial of skill and last between us and 
them — like a match at football, or a battle. We’re 
natural enemies in school, that’s the fact. We’ve 
got to learn so much Latin and Greek and do so 
many verses, and they’ve got to see that we do it. 
If we can slip the collar and do so much less without 


3 o 8 tom BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 

getting caught, that’s one to us. If they can get 
more out of us, or catch us shirking, that’s one to 
them. All’s fair in war, but lying. If I run my luck 
against theirs, and go into school without looking at 
my lessons, and don’t get called up, why am I a snob 
or ,a sneak? I don’t tell the master I’ve learnt it. 
He’s got to find out whether I have or not ; what’s he 
paid for ? If he calls me up, and I get floored, he 
makes me write it out in Greek and English. Very 
good, he’s caught me, and I don’t grumble. I grant 
you, if I go and snivel to him, and tell him I’ve 
really tried to learn it but found it so hard without 
a translation, or say I’ve had a toothache, or any 
humbug of that kind. I’m a snob. That’s my school 
morality ; it served me — and you too, Tom, for the 
matter of that — these five years. And it’s all clear 
and fair, no mistake about it. We understand it, and 
they understand it, and I don’t know what we’re to 
come to with any other.” 

Tom looked at him pleased, and a little puzzled. 
He had never heard East speak his mind seriously 
before, and couldn’t help feeling how completely he 
had hit his own theory and practice up to that time. 

“Thank you, old fellow,” said he. “You’re a 
good old brick to be serious, and not put out with 
me. I said more than I meant, I dare say, only you 
see I know I’m right : whatever you and Gower and 
the rest do, I shall hold on — I must. And as it’s all 
new and an up-hill game, you see, one must hit hard 
and hold on tight at first.” 

“ Very good,” said East ; “ hold on and hit away, 
only don’t hit under the line.” 

“ But I must bring you over, Harry, or I shan’t be 
comfortable. Now, I allow all you’ve said. We’ve 
?.lways been honourable enemies with the masters. 


ART'HUR GOES HOME. 


309 


We found a state of war when we came, and went 
into it of course. Only don’t you think things are 
altered a good deal? I don’t feel as I used to the 
masters. They seem to me to treat one quite dilfer- 
ently.” 

“Yes, perhaps they do,” said East; “there’s a 
new set, you see, mostly, who don’t feel sure of them- 
selves yet. They don’t want to fight till they know 
the ground.” 

“ I don’t think it’s only that,” said Tom. “And 
then the Doctor, he does treat one so openly, and 
like a gentleman, and as if one was working with him.” 

“ Well, so he does,” said East ; “ he’s a splendid 
fellow, and when I get into the sixth I shall act 
accordingly. Only you know he has nothing to da 
with our lessons now, except examining us. I say^ 
though,” looking at his watch, “ it’s just the quarter. 
Come along.” 

As they walked out they got a message to say, 
“ that Arthur was just starting and would like to say 
good-bye;” so they went down to the private en- 
trance of the School-house, and found an open car- 
riage, with Arthur propped up with pillows in it, 
looking already better, Tom thought. 

They jumped up on to the steps to shake hands 
with him, and Tom mumbled thanks for the presents 
he had found in his study, and looked round anxiously 
for Arthur’s mother. 

East, who had fallen back into his usual humour, 
looked quaintly at Arthur, and said — 

“So you’ve been at it again, through that hot- 
headed convert of yours there. He’s been making our 
lives a burthen to us all the morning about using cribs. 
I shall get floored to a certainty at second lesson, if 
I’m called up.” 


310 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


Arthur blushed and looked down. Tom struck 
in — 

‘*0h, it’s all right. He’s converted already; he 
always comes through the mud after us, grumbling 
and sputtering.” 

The clock struck, and they had to go off to school, 
wishing Arthur a pleasant holiday ; Tom lingering 
behind a moment to send his thanks and love to 
Arthur’s mother. 

Tom renewed the discussion after second lesson, 
and succeeded so far as to get East to promise to 
give the new plan a fair trial. 

Encouraged by his success, in the evening, when 
they were sitting alone in the large study, where East 
lived now almost, “vice Arthur on leave,” after ex- 
amining the new fishing-rod, which both pronounced 
to be the genuine article, (“ play enough to throw a 
midge tied on a single hair against the wind, and 
strength enough to hold a grampus,”) they naturally 
began talking about Arthur. Tom, who was still 
bubbling over , with last night’s scene, and all the 
thoughts of the last week, and wanting to clinch and 
fix the whole in his own mind, which he could never do 
without first going through the process of belabour- 
ing somebody else with it all, suddenly rushed into 
the subject of Arthur’s illness, and what he had said 
about death. 

East had given him the desired opening : after a 
serio-comic grumble, “that life wasn’t worth having 
now they were tied to a young beggar who was always 
‘ raising his standard ; ’ and that he, East, was like a 
prophet’s donkey, who was obliged tostruggleon after 
the donkey-man who went after the prophet ; that he 
had none of the pleasure of starting the new crotchets, 
and didn’t half understand them, but had to take the 


FRIENDSHIP TESTED. 


311 

kicks and carry the luggage as if he had all the fun ” — 
he threw his legs up on to the sofa, and put his hands 
behind his head, and said — 

Well, after all, he’s the most wonderful little 
fellow I ever came across. There ain’t such a meek, 
humble boy in the School. Hanged if I don’t think 
now really, Tom, that he believes himself a much 
worse fellow than you or I, and that he don’t think 
he has more influence in the house than Dot Bowles, 
who came last quarter, and ain’t ten yet. But he 
turns you and me round his little finger, old boy — 
there’s no mistake about that.” And East nodded 
at Tom sagaciously. 

“ Now or never ! ” thought Tom ; so shutting his 
eyes and hardening his heart, he went straight at it, 
repeating all that Arthur had said, as near as he could 
remember it, in the very words, and all he had 
himself thought. The life seemed to ooze out of it 
as he went on, and several times he felt inclined to 
stop, give it all up, and change the subject. But 
somehow he was borne on ; he had a necessity upon 
him to speak it all out, and did so. At the end he 
looked at East with some anxiety, and was delighted 
to see that that young gentleman was thoughtful and 
attentive. The fact is, that in the stage of his inner 
life at which Tom had lately arrived, his intimacy 
with and friendship for East could not have lasted if 
he had not made him aware of, and a sharer in, the 
thoughts that were beginning to exercise him. Nor 
indeed could the friendship have lasted if East had 
shown no sympathy with these thoughts ; so that it 
was a great relief to have unbosomed himself, and to 
have found that his friend could listen. 

Tom had always had a sort of instinct that East’s 
levity was only skin-deep ; and this instinct was a 


312 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


true one. East had no want of reverence for any- 
thing he felt to be real : but his was one of those na- 
tures that burst into what is generally called reckless- 
ness and impiety the moment they feel that anything 
is being poured upon them for their good, which does 
not come home to their inborn sense of right, or 
which appeals to anything like self-interest in them. 
Daring and honest by nature, and outspoken to an 
extent which alarmed all respectabilities^ with a con- 
stant fund of animal health and spirits which he did 
not feel bound to curb in any way, he had gained for 
himself with the steady part of the School (includ- 
ing as well those who wished to appear steady as 
those who really were so), the character of a boy 
whom it would be dangerous to be intimate with ; 
while his own hatred of everything cruel, or under- 
hand, or false, and his hearty respect for what he 
could see to be good and true, kept off the rest. 

Tom, besides being very like East in many points of 
character, had largely developed in his composition 
the capacity for taking the weakest side. This is not 
putting it strongly enough ; it was a necessity with 
him ; he couldn’t help it any more than he could eat- 
ing or drinking. He could never play on the strong- 
est side with any heart at football or cricket, and 
was sure to make friends with any boy who was un- 
popular, or down on his luck. 

Now though East was not what is generally called 
unpopular, Tom felt more and more every day, as 
their characters developed, that he stood alone, and 
did not make friends among their contemporaries, 
and therefore sought him out. Tom was himself 
much more popular, for his power of detecting hum- 
bug was much less acute, and his instincts were much 
more sociable. He was at this period of his life, too. 


FRIENDSHIP TESTED, 


313 

largely given to taking people for what they gave 
themselves out to be ; but his singleness of heart, 
fearlessness and honesty were just what East appreci- 
ated, and thus the two had been drawn into greater 
intimacy. 

This intimacy had not been interrupted by Tom’s 
guardianship of Arthur. 

East had often, as has been said, joined them in 
reading the Bible ; but their discussions had almost 
always turned upon the characters of the men and 
women of whom they read, and not become personal 
to themselves. In fact, the two had shrunk from 
personal religious discussion, not knowing how it 
might end; and fearful of risking a friendship very 
dear to both, and which they felt somehow, without 
quite knowing why, would never be the same, but 
either tenfold stronger or sapped at its foundation, 
after such a communing together. 

What a bother all this explaining is ! I wish we 
could get on without it. But we can’t. However, 
you’ll all find, if you haven’t found it out already, 
that a, time comes in every human friendship, when 
you must go down into the depths of yourself, and 
lay bare what is there to your friend, and wait in 
fear for his answer. A few moments may do it ; and 
it may be (most likely will be, as you are English 
boys) that you never do it but once. But done it 
must be, if the friendship is to be worth the name. 
You must find what is there, at the very root and 
bottom of one another’s hearts; and if you are at 
once there, nothing on earth can, or at least ought 
to sunder you. 

East had remained lying down until Tom finished 
speaking, as if fearing to interrupt him ; he now sat 
up at the table, and leant his head on one hand, tak- 


3^4 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


ing up a pencil with the other, and working little 
holes with it in the table-cover. After a bit he 
looked up, stopped the pencil, and said, ‘‘ Thank 
you very much, old fellow ; there’s no other boy in 
the house would have done it for me but you or 
Arthur. I can see well enough,” he went on after 
a pause, “all the best big fellows look on me with 
suspicion; they think I’m a devil-may-care, reckless 
young scamp. So 1 am — eleven hours out of twelve 
— but not the twelfth. Then all of our contempo- 
raries worth knowing follow suit, of course; we’re 
very good friends at games and all that, but not a 
soul of them but you and Arthur ever tried to break 
through the crust, and see whether there was any- 
thing at the bottom of me ; and then the bad ones I 
won’t stand, and they know that.” 

“Don’t you think that’s half fancy, Harry?” 

“Not a bit of it,” said East bitterly, pegging 
away with his pencil. “I see it all plain enough. 
Bless you, you think everybody’s as straightforward 
and kindhearted as you are.” 

“ Well, but what’s the reason of it? There must 
be a reason. You can play all the games as well as 
any one, and sing the best song, and are the best 
company in the house. You fancy you’re not liked, 
Harry. It’s all fancy.” 

“I only wish it was, Tom. I know I could be 
popular enough with all the bad ones, but • that I 
won’t have, and the good ones won’t have me.” 

“Why not?” persisted Tom; “you don’t drink 
or swear, or get out at night ; you never bully, or 
cheat at lessons. If you only showed you liked it, 
you’d have all the best fellows in the house running 
after you.” 

“ Not I,” said East. Then with an effort he went 


EASTS CONFESSIONS. 


315 


on, “ I’ll tell you what it is. I never stop the Sacra- 
ment. I can see, from the Doctor downwards, how 
that tells against me.” 

“Yes, I’ve seen that,” said Tom, “and I ’ve been 
very sorry for it, and Arthur and I have talked about 
it. I’ve often thought of speaking to you, but it’s so 
hard to begin on such subjects. I’m very glad 
you’ve opened it. Now, why don’t you?” 

“ I’ve never been confirmed,” said East. 

“Not been confirmed!” said Tom in astonish- 
ment. “I never thought of that. Why weren’t 
you confirmed with the rest of us nearly three years 
ago? I always thought you’d been confirmed at 
home.” 

“No,” answered East sorrowfully; “you see this 
was how it happened. Last confirmation was soon 
after Arthur came, and you were so taken up with 
him, I hardly saw either of you. Well, when the 
Doctor sent round for us about it, I was living 
mostly with Green’s set — you know the sort. They 
all went in — I dare say it was all right, and they got 
good by it ; I don’t want to judge them. Only all I 
could see of their reasons drove me just the other 
way. ’Twas ‘ because the Doctor liked it ; ’ ‘no boy 
got on who didn’t stay the Sacrament; ’ ‘ it was the 
correct thing,’ in fact, like having a good hat to 
wear on Sundays. I couldn’t stand it. I didn’t 
feel that I wanted to lead a different life, I was very 
well content as I was, and I wasn’t going to sham 
religious to curry favour with the Doctor, or any one 
else.” 

East stopped speaking, and pegged away more dili- 
gently than ever with his pencil. Tom was ready to 
cry. He felt half sorry at first that he had been con- 
firmed himself. He seemed to have deserted his 


3 i 6 tom BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 

earliest friend, to have left him by himself at his 
worst need for those long years. He got up and 
went and sat by East and put his arm over his 
shoulder. 

“ Dear old boy,” he said, how careless and self- 
ish I’ve been. But why didn’t you come and talk 
to Arthur and me ? ” 

“ I wish to heaven I had,” said East, ^‘but I was 
a fool. It’s too late talking of it now.” 

“Why too late? You want to be confirmed now, 
don’t you ? ” 

“ I think so,” said East. “ I’ve thought about it 
a good deal ; only often I fancy I must be changing, 
because I see it’s to do me good here, just what 
stopped me last time. And then I go back again.” 

“I’ll tell you now how ’twas with me,” said Tom 
warmly. “If it hadn’t been for Arthur, I should 
have done just as you did. I hope I should. I 
honour you for it. But then he made it out just as 
if it was taking the weak side before all the world — 
going in once for all against everything that’s strong 
and rich and proud and respectable, a little band of 
brothers against the whole world. And the Doctor 
seemed to say so too, only he said a great deal 
more.” 

“Ah!” groaned East, “but there again, that’s 
just another of my difficulties whenever I think 
about the matter. I don’t want to be one of your 
saints, one of your elect, whatever the right phrase 
is. My sympathies are all the other way ; with the 
many, the poor devils who run about the streets and 
don’t go to church. Don’t stare, Tom; mind, I’m 
telling you all that’s in my heart — as far as I know 
it — but it’s all a muddle. You must be gentle with 
me if you want to land me. Now I’ve seen a deal 


TOM^S PRESCRIPTION. 


317 

of this sort of religion ; I was bred up in it, and I 
can’t stand it. If nineteen-twentieths of the world 
are to be left to uncovenanted mercies, and that sort 
of thing, which means in plain English to go to hell, 
and the other twentieth are to rejoice at it all, why — ” 

“Oh ! but, Harry, they ain’t, they don’t,” broke 
in Tom, really shocked. “ Oh, how I wish Arthur 
hadn’t gone ! I’m such a fool about these things. 
But it’s all you want too. East ; it is indeed. It 
cuts both ways somehow, being confirmed and taking 
the Sacrament. It makes you feel on the side of all 
the good and all the bad too, of everybody in the 
world. Only there’s some great dark strong power, 
which is crushing you and everybody else. That’s 
what Christ conquered, and we’ve got to fight. 
What a fool I am ! I can’t explain. If Arthur were 
only here ! ” 

“I begin to get a glimmering of what you mean,” 
said East. 

“ I say now,” said Tom eagerly, “ do you remem- 
ber how we both hated Flashman ? ’ ’ 

“Of course I do,” said East; “I hate him still. 
What then?” 

“ Well, when I came to take the Sacrament, I had 
a great struggle about that. I tried to put him out 
of my head ; and when I couldn’t do that, I tried to 
think of him as evil, as something that the Lord who 
was loving me hated, and which I might hate too. 
But it wouldn’t dcH I broke down : I believe Christ 
himself broke me down ; and when the Doctor gave 
me the bread and wine, and leant over me praying, 
I prayed for poor Flashman, as if it had been you or 
Arthur.” 

East buried his face in his hands on the table. 
Tom could feel the table tremble. At last he looked 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


318 

up, “ Thank you again, Tom,” said he ; you don’t 
know what you may have done for me to-night. I 
think I see now how the right sort of sympathy with 
poor devils is got at.” 

^‘And you’ll stop the Sacrament next time, won’t 
you ? ” said Tom. 

“Can I, before I’m confirmed?” 

“Go and ask the Doctor.” 

“I will.” 

That very night, after prayers. East followed the 
Doctor and the old verger bearing the candle, up- 
stairs. Tom watched, and saw the Doctor turn round 
when he heard footsteps following him closer than 
usual, and say, “ Hah, East ! Do you want to speak 
with me, my man ? ” 

“ If you please, sir ; ” and the private door closed 
and Tom went to his study in a state of great trouble 
of mind. 

It was almost an hour before East came back : 
then he rushed in breathless. 

“ Well, it’s all right,” he shouted, seizing Tom by 
the hand. “I feel as if a ton-weight were off my 
mind.” 

“ Hurra,” said Tom. “ I knew it would be ; but 
tell us all about it ? ” 

“Well, I just told him all about it. You can’t 
think how kind and gentle he was, the great grim 
man, whom I’ve feared more than anybody on earth. 
When I stuck, he lifted me, Justus if I had been a 
little child. And he seemed to know all I’d felt, 
and to have gone through it all. And I burst out 
crying — more than I’ve done this five years; and he 
sat down by me, and stroked ray head ; and I went 
blundering on, and told him all ; much worse things 
than I’ve told you. And he wasn’t shocked a bit. 


THE EFFECT THEREOF. 


319 


and didn’t snub me, or tell me I was a fool, and it 
was all nothing but pride or wickedness, though I 
dare say it was. And he didn’t tell me not to follow 
out my thoughts, and he didn’t give me any cut-and- 
dried explanation. But when I’d done he just 
talked a bit — I can hardly remember what he said 
yet ; but it seemed to spread round me like healing, 
and strength, and light ; and to bear me up, and 
plant me on a rock, where I could hold my footing, 
and fight for myself. I don’t know what to do, I 
feel so happy. And it’s all owing to you, dear old 
boy ! ” and he seized Tom’s hand again. 

“ And you’re to come to the Communion ? ” said 
Tom. 

“Yes, and to be confirmed in the holidays.” 

Tom’s delight was as great as his friend’s. But 
he hadn’t yet had out all his own talk, and was bent 
on improving the occasion : so he proceeded to pro- 
pound Arthur’s theory about not being sorry for his 
friends’ deaths, which he had hitherto kept in the 
background, and by which he was much exercised ; 
for he didn’t feel it honest to take what pleased him 
and throw over the rest, and was trying vigorously^ 
to persuade himself that he should like all his best 
friends to die off-hand. 

But East’s powers of remaining serious were 
exhausted, and in five minutes he was saying the 
most ridiculous things he could think of, till Tom 
was almost getting angry again. 

Despite of himself, however, he couldn’t help 
laughing and giving it up, when East appealed to 
him with “ Weil, Tom, you ain’t going to punch mj 
head, I hope, because I insist upon being sorry when 
you got to earth ? ” 

And so their talk finished for that time, and they 


320 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


tried to learn first lesson ; with very poor success, as 
appeared next morning, when they were called up 
and narrowly escaped being floored, which ill-luck, 
however, did not sit heavily on either of their souls. 


o 

CHAPTER VIII. 

TOM brown’s last MATCH. 

T he curtain now rises upon the last act of our little 
drama — for hard-hearted publishers warn me that 
a single volume must of necessity have an end. 
Well, well ! the pleasantest things must come to an 
end. I little thought last long vacation, when I be- 
gan these pages to help while away some spare time 
at a watering-place, how vividly many an old scene, 
which had lain hid away for years in some dusty old 
corner of my brain, would come back again, and 
stand before me as clear and bright as if it had hap- 
pened yesterday. The book has been a most grate- 
ful task to me, and I only hope that all you, my dear 
young friends who read it, (friends assuredly you 
must be, if you get as far as this,) will be half as 
sorry to come to the last stage as I am. 

Not but what there has been a solemn and a sad 
side to it. As the old scenes became living, and the 
actors in them became living too, many a grave in 
the Crimea and distant India, as well as in the quiet 
churchyards of our dear old country, seemed to open 
and send forth their dead, and their voices and looks 
and ways were again in one’s ears and eyes, as in the 
old school-days. But this was not sad ; how should 
it be, if we believe as our Lord has taught us ? How 


SCHOOL MEMORIES. 


321 


should it be, when, one more turn of the wheel, and 
we shall be by their sides again, learning from them 
again, perhaps, as we did when we were new boys? 

Then there were others of the old faces so dear to 
us once, who had somehow or another just gone clean 
out of sight — are they dead or living? We know 
not ; but the thought of them brings no sadness wjth 
it. Wherever they are, we can well believe they are 
doing God’s work and getting His wages. 

But are there not some, whom we still see some- 
times in the streets, whose haunts and homes we 
know, whom we could probably find almost any day 
in the week if we were set to do it, yet from whom 
we are really farther than we are from the dead, and 
from those who have gone out of our ken ? Yes, 
there are and must be such ; and therein lies the sad- 
ness of old School memories. Yet of these our old 
comrades, from whom more than time and space sep- 
arate us, there are some, by whose sides we can feel 
sure that we shall stand again when time shall be no 
more. We may think of one another now as dan- 
gerous fanatics or narrow bigots, with whom no 
truce is possible, from whom we shall only sever more 
and more to the end of our lives, whom it would be 
our respective duties to imprison or hang, if we had 
the power. We must go our way, and they theirs, 
as long as flesh and spirit hold together ; but let our 
own Rugby poet speak words of healing for this 
trial : — 

“ To veer how vain ! on, onward strain. 

Brave barks ! in light, in darkness too ; 

Through winds and tides one compass guides. 

To that, and your own selves, be true. 

“ But, O blithe breeze ! and O great seas ! 

Though ne’er that earliest parting past. 

On your wide plain they join again. 

Together lead them home at last. 


21 


322 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


“ One port, methought, alike they sought, 

One purpose hold where’er they fare. 

O bounding breeze ! O rushing seas ! 

At last, at last, unite them there.” * 

f This is not mere longing, it is prophecy. So over 
these two, our old friends who are friends no more, 
we sorrow not as men without hope. It is only for 
those who seem to us to have lost compass and pur- 
pose, and to be driven helplessly on rocks and quick- 
sands ; whose lives are spent in the service of the 
world, the flesh, and the devil ; for self alone, and 
not for their fellow-men, their country, or their God, 
that we must mourn and pray without sure hope and 
without light ; trusting only that He, in whose hands 
they as well as we are, who has died for them as well 
as for us, who sees all his creatures 

” With larger, other eyes than ours. 

To make allowance for us all.” 

will, in His own way and at His own time, lead them 
also home. 

Another two years have passed, and it is again the 
end of the summer half-year at Rugby ; in fact, the 
School has broken up. The fifth-form examina- 
tions were over last week, and upon them have fol- 
lowed the Speeches, and the sixth-form examinations 
for Exhibitions ; and they too are over now. The 
boys have gone to all the winds of heaven, except the 
town boys and the eleven, and the few enthusiasts 
besides who have asked leave to stay in their houses 
to see the result of the cricket-matches. For this 
year the Wellesburn return match and the Maryle- 
bone match are played at Rugby, to the great delight 
of the town and neighbourhood, and the sorrow of 


* Clough. Ambarvalia, 


THE END OF THE HALF YEAR. 


323 

those aspiring young cricketers who have been reck- 
oning for the last three months on showing off at 
Lord’s ground. 

The Doctor started for the Lakes yesterday morn- 
ing, after an interview with the captain of the eleven, 
in the presence of Thomas, at which he arranged in 
what School the cricket dinners were to be, and all 
other matters necessary for the satisfactory carrying 
out of the festivities ; and warned them as to keep- 
ing all spirituous liquors out of the close, and having 
the gates closed by nine o’clock. 

The Wellesburn match was played out with great 
success yesterday, the School winning by three 
wickets ; and to-day the great event of the cricket- 
ing year, the Marylebone match, is being played. 
What a match it has been ! The London eleven 
came down by an afternoon train yesterday, in time 
to see the end of the Wellesburn match ; and as soon 
as it was over, their leading men and umpire 
inspected the ground^ criticising it rather unmerci- 
fully. The Captain of the School eleven, and one 
or two others, who had played the Lord’s match 
before,. and knew old Mr. Aislabie and several of the 
Lord’s men, accompanied them: while the rest of 
the eleven looked on from under the Three Trees 
with admiring eyes, and asked one another the names 
of the illustrious strangers, and recounted how many 
runs each of them had made in the late matches in 
Beir s Life. They looked such hard-bitten, wiry, 
whiskered fellows, that their young adversaries felt 
rather desponding as to the result of the morrow’s 
match. The ground was at last chosen, and two men 
set to work upon it to water and roll ; and then, there 
being yet some half-hour of daylight, some one had 
suggested a dance on the turf, lire close was half 


324 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


full of citizens and their families, and the idea was 
hailed with enthusiasm. The cornopean-player was 
still on the ground ; in five minutes the eleven and 
half-a-dozen of the Wellesburn and Marylebone men 
got partners somehow or another, and a merry coun- 
try-dance was going on, to which every one flocked, 
and new couples joined in every minute, till there 
were a hundred of them going down the middle and 
up again — and the long line of School buildings 
looked gravely down on them, every window glow- 
ing with the last rays of the western sun, and the 
rooks clanged about in the tops of the old elms, 
greatly excited, and resolved on having their coun- 
try-dance too, and the great flag flapped lazily in the 
gentle western breeze. Altogether it was a sight 
which would have made glad the heart of our brave 
old founder, Lawrence Sheriff, if he were half as 
good a fellow as I take him to have been. It was a 
cheerful sight to see ; but what made it so valuable 
in the sight of the Captain of the School eleven was, 
that he there saw his young hands shaking off their 
shyness and awe of the Lord’s men, as they crossed 
hands and capered about on the grass together ; for 
the strangers entered into it all, and threw away 
their cigars, and danced and shouted like boys; 
while old Mr. Aislabie stood by looking on in his 
white hat, leaning on a bat, in benevolent enjoy- 
ment. This hop will be worth thirty runs to us 
to-morrow, and will be the making of Raggles and 
Johnson,” thinks the young leader, as he revolves 
many things in his mind, standing by the side of 
Mr. Aislabie, whom he will not leave for a minute, 
for he feels that the character of the School for 
courtesy is resting on his shoulders. 

But when a quarter-to-nine struck, and he saw old 


CRICKET MATCHES. 


325 


Thomas beginning to fidget about with the keys in 
his hand, he thought of the Doctor’s parting moni- 
tion, and stopped the cornopean at once, notwith- 
standing the loud-voiced remonstrances from all 
sides ; and the crowd scattered away from the close, 
the eleven all going into the School-house, where 
supper and beds were provided for them by the Doc- 
tor’s orders. 

Deep had been the consultations at supper as to the 
order of going in, who should bowl the first over, 
whether it would be best to play steady or freely ; 
and the youngest hands declared that they shouldn’t 
be a bit nervous, and praised their opponents as the 
jolliest fellows in the world, except perhaps their old 
f^riends the Wellesburn men. How far a little good- 
nature from their elders will go with the right sort 
of boys ! 

The morning had dawned bright and warm, to the 
intense relief of many an anxious youngster, up be- 
times to mark the signs of the weather. The eleven 
went down in a body before breakfast, for a plunge 
in the cold bath in the corner of the close. The 
ground was in splendid order, and soon after ten 
o’clock, before spectators had arrived, all was ready, 
and two of the Lord’s men took their places at the 
wicket ; the School, with the usual liberality of young 
hands, having put their adversaries in first. Old 
Bailey stepped up to the wicket, and called play, and 
the match has begun. 

“Oh, well bowled ! well bowled, Johnson ! ” cries 
the captain, catching up the ball and sending it high 
above the rook trees, while the third Marylebone man 
walks away from the wicket, and old Bailey gravely 
sets up the middle stump again and puts the bails on. 


326 tom BRO WN ’ SCHO OL DA YS. 

“How many runs?” Away scamper three boys 
to the scoring-table, and are back again in a minute 
amongst the rest of the eleven, who are collected to- 
gether in a knot between wicket. “ Only eighteen 
runs, and three wickets down ! ” “ Huzza for old 

Rugby ! ” sings out Jack Raggles the long-stop, 
toughest and burliest of boys, commonly called 
‘ Swiper Jack ; ’ and forthwith stands on his head, 
and brandishes his legs in the air in triumph, till the 
next boy catches hold of his heels, and throws him 
over on to his back. 

“ Steady there, don’t be such an ass. Jack,” says 
the captain ; “we haven’t got the best wicket yet. 
Ah, look out now at cover-point,” adds he, as he sees 
a long-armed, bare-headed, slashing-looking player 
coming to the wicket. “And, Jack, mind your hits ; 
he steals more runs than any man in England.” 

And they all find that they have got their work to 
do now : the new-comer’s off-hitting is tremendous, 
and his running like a flash of lightning. He is 
never in his ground, except when his wicket is down. 
Nothing in the whole game so trying to boys ; he has 
stolen three byes in the first ten minutes, and Jack 
Raggles is furious, and begins throwing over savagely 
to the further wicket, until he is sternly stopped by 
the captain. It is all that young gentleman can do 
to keep his team steady, but he knows that every- 
thing depends on it, and faces his work bravely. 
The score creeps up to fifty, the boys begin to look 
blank, and the spectators, who are now mustering 
strong, are very silent. The ball flies off his bat to 
all parts of the field, and he gives no rest and no 
catches to any one. But cricket is full of glorious 
chances, and the goddess who presides over it loves 
to bring down the most skilful players. Johnson, 


SOME OLD FRIENDS. 


327 


the young bowler, is getting wild, and bowls a ball 
almost wide to the off ; the batter steps out and cuts 
it beautifully to where cover-point is standing very 
deep, in fact almost off the ground. The ball comes 
skimming and twisting along about three feet from 
the ground ; he rushes at it, and it sticks somehow or 
other in the fingers of his left hand, to the utter as- 
tonishment of himself and the whole field. Such a 
catch hasn’t been made in the close for years, and 
the cheering is maddening. “ Pretty cricket,” says 
the captain, throwing himself on the ground by the 
deserted wicket with a long breath ; he feels that a 
crisis has passed. 

I wish I had space to describe the whole match ; 
how the captain stumped the next man off a leg- 
shooter, and bowled slow lobs to old Mr. Aislabie, 
who came in for the last wicket. How the Lord’s 
men were out by half-past twelve o’clock for ninety- 
eight runs. How the Captain of the School eleven 
went in first to give his men pluck, and scored twen- 
ty-five in beautiful style; how Rugby was only four 
behind in the first innings. What a glorious dinner 
they had in the fourth-form School, and how the 
cover-point hitter sang the most topping comic songs, 
and old Mr. Aislabie made the best speeches that 
ever were heard, afterwards. But I haven’t space, 
that’s the fact, and so you must fancy it all, and carry 
yourselves on to half-past seven o’clock, when the 
School are again in, with five wickets down and only 
thirty-two runs to make to win. The Marylebone 
men played carelessly in their second innings, but 
they are working like horses now to save the match. 

There is much healthy, hearty, happy life scattered 
up and down the close; but the group to which I beg 
to call your especial attention is there, on the slope 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


328 

of the island, which looks towards the cricket-ground. 
It consists of three figures; two are seated on a bench, 
and one ’on the ground at their feet. The first, a 
tall, slight, and rather gaunt man with a bushy eye- 
brow and a dry humourous smile, is evidently a cler- 
gyman. He is carelessly dressed, and looks rather 
used up, which isn’t much to be wondered at, seeing 
that he has just finished six weeks of examination 
work ; but there he basks, and spreads himself out in 
the evening sun, bent on enjoying life, though he 
doesn’t quite know what to do with his arms and 
legs. Surely it is our friend the young master, whom 
we have had glimpses of before, but his face has gained 
a great deal since we last came across him. 

And by his side, in white flannel shirt and trousers, 
straw hat, the captain’s belt, and the untanned yellow 
cricket shoes which all the eleven wear, sits a strap- 
ping figure near six feet high, witli ruddy tanned face 
and whiskers, curly brown hair and a laughing dan- 
cing eye. He is leaning forward with his elbows rest- 
ing on his knees, and dandling his favourite bat, with 
which he has made thirty or forty runs to-day, in his 
strong brown hands. It is Tom Brown, grown into 
a young man nineteen years old, a praepostor and 
captain of the eleven, spending his last day as a 
Rugby boy, and let us hope as much wiser as he is 
bigger since we last had the pleasure of coming 
across him. And at their feet on the warm dry 
ground, similarly dressed, sits Arthur, Turkish fashion, 
with his bat across his knees. He too is no longer a 
boy, less of a boy in fact than Tom, if one may judge 
from the thoughtfulness of his face, which is some- 
what paler too than one could wish ; but his figure, 
though slight, is well knit and active, and all his old 
timidity has disappeared, and is replaced by silent 


THEIR TALK. 


329 


quaint fun, with which his face twinkles all over, as 
he listens to the broken talk between the other two, 
in which he joins every now and then. 

All three are watching the game eagerly, and join- 
ing in the cheering which follows every good hit. 
It is pleasing to see the easy, friendly footing which 
the pupils are on with their master, perfectly respect- 
ful, yet with no reserve and nothing forced in their 
intercourse. Tom has clearly abandoned the old 
theory of “ natural enemies,” in this case at any rate. 

But it is time to listen to what they are saying, 
and see what we can gather out of it. 

“ I don’t object to your theory,” says the master, 
“and I allow you have made a fair case for yourself. 
But now, in such books as Aristophanes for instance, 
you’ve been reading a play this half with the Doctor, 
haven’t you ? ” 

“Yes, the Knights,” answered Tom. 

“Well, I’m sure you would have enjoyed the 
wonderful humour of it twice as much if you had 
taken more pains with your scholarship.” 

“ Well, sir, I don’t believe any boy in the form 
enjoyed the sets-to between Cleon and the Sausage- 
seller more than I did — eh, Arthur?” said Tom, 
giving him a stir with his foot. 

“Yes, I must say he did,” said Arthur. “I 
think, sir, you’ve hit upon the wrong book there.” 

“Not a bit of it,” said the master. “Why, in 
those very passages of arms, how can you thoroughly 
appreciate them unless you are master of the weapons? 
and the weapons are the language, which you. Brown, 
have never half worked at ; and so, as I say, you 
must have lost all the delicate shades of meaning 
which make the best part of the fun.” 

“Oh! well played — bravo, Johnson!” shouted 


330 


TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL DAYS. 


Arthur, dropping his bat and clapping furiously, and 
Tom joined in with a ‘‘Bravo, Johnson!” which 
might have been heard at the chapel. 

“ Eh ! what was it? I didn’t see,” inquired the 
master ; “ they only got one run, I thought ? ” 

“ No, but such a ball, three-quarters length and 
coming straight for his leg bail. Nothing but that 
turn of the wrist could have saved him, and he drew 
it away to leg for a safe one. Bravo, Johnson ! ” 
“How well they are bowling, though,” said 
Arthur; “ they don’t mean to be beat, I can see.” 

“There now,” struck in the master, “you see 
that’s just what I have been preaching this half-hour. 
The delicate play is the true thing. I don’t under- 
stand cricket, so I don’t enjoy those fine drawls which 
you tell me are the best play, though when you or 
Raggles hit a ball hard away for six I am as de- 
lighted as any one. Don’t you see the analogy ? ” 
“Yes, sir,” answered Tom, looking up roguishly, 
“I see ; only the question remains whether I should 
have got most good by understanding Greek particles 
or cricket thoroughly. I’m such a thick, I never 
should have had time for both.” 

“I see you are an incorrigible,” said the master 
with a chuckle; “but I refute you by an example. 
Arthur there has taken in Greek and cricket too.” 

“ Yes, but no thanks to him; Greek came natural 
to him. Why, when he first came I remember he 
used to read Herodotus for pleasure as I did Don 
Quixote, and couldn’t have made a false concord if 
he’d tried ever so hard — and then I looked after his 
cricket.” 

“Out! Bailey has given him out — do you see, 
Tom?” cries Arthur. “How foolish of them to 
run so hard. ’ ’ 


THEIR TALK. 


331 


Well, it can’t be helped, he has played very 
well. Whose turn is it to go in ? ” 

I don’t know; they’ve got your list in the tent.” 

“ Let’s go and see,” said Tom, rising ; but at this 
moment Jack Raggles and two or three more came 
running to the island moat. 

“Oh, Brown, mayn’t I go in next?” shouts the 
Swiper. 

“Whose name is next on the list?” says the 
Captain. 

“Winter’s, and then Arthur’s, ” answers the boy 
who carries it; “but there are only twenty-six runs 
to get, and no time to lose. I heard Mr. Aislabie 
say that the stumps must be drawn at a quarter past 
eight exactly.” 

“ Oh, do let the Swiper go in,” chorus the boys : 
so Tom yields against his better judgment. 

“ I dare say now I’ve lost the match by this non- 
sense,” he says, as he sits down again ; “ they’ll be 
sure to get Jack’s wicket in three or four minutes; 
however, you’ll have the chance, sir, of seeing a 
hard hit or two,” adds he, smiling, and turning to 
the master. 

“ Come, none of your irony. Brown,” answers the 
master. “I’m beginning to understand the game 
scientifically. What a noble game it is too ! ” 

“Isn’t it? But it’s more than a game. It’s an 
institution,” said Tom. 

“Yes,” said Arthur, “the birthright of British 
boys, old and young, as habeas corpus and trial by 
jury are of British men.” 

“The discipline and reliance on one another 
which it teaches is so valuable, I think,” went on 
the master, “it ought to be such an unselfish game. 


332 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


It merges the individual in the eleven ; he doesn’t 
play that he may win, but that his side may.” 

“That’s very true,” said Tom, “and that’s why 
football and cricket, now one comes to think of it, 
are such much better games than fives’ or hare-and- 
hounds, or any others where the object is to come 
in first or to win for oneself, and not that one’s side 
may win.” 

“And then the Captain of the eleven ! ” said the 
master, “what a post is his in our School-world! 
almost as hard as the Doctor’s \ requiring skill and 
gentleness and firmness, and I know not what other 
rare qualities.” 

“ Which don’t he wish he may get ?” said Tom, 
laughing ; “ at any rate he hasn’t got them yet, or he 
wouldn’t have been such a flat to-night as to let 
Jack Raggles go in out of his turn.” 

“Ah ! the Doctor never would have done that,” 
said Arthur, demurely. “Tom, you’ve a great deal 
to learn yet in the art of ruling.” 

“Well, I wish you’d tell the Doctor so, then, and 
get him to let me stop till I’m twenty. I don’t want 
to leave. I’m sure.” 

“What a sight it is,” broke in the master, “the 
Doctor as a ruler. Perhaps ours is the only little 
corner of the British Empire which is thoroughly, 
wisely, and strongly ruled just now. I’m more and 
more thankful every day of my life that I came here 
to be under him.” 

“ So am J, I’m sure,” said Tom ; “and more and 
more sorry that I’ve got to leave.” 

“ Every place and thing one sees here reminds 
one of some wise act of his,” went on the master. 
“ This island now — you remember the time. Brown, 


THEIR TALK. 


333 

when it was laid out in small gardens, and cultivated 
by frost-bitten fags in February and March ? ” 

Of course I do/’ said Tom; “didn’t I hate 
spending two hours in the afternoons grubbing in 
the tough dirt with the stump of a fives’ -bat? But 
turf-cart was good fun enough.” 

“I dare say it was, but it was always leading to 
fights with the townspeople ; and then the stealing 
flowers out of all the gardens in Rugby for the 
Easter show was abominable.” 

“ Well, so it was,” said Tom, looking down, “ but 
we fags couldn’t help ourselves. But what has that 
to do with the Doctor’s ruling? ” 

“ A great deal, I think,” said the master ; “ what 
brought island fagging to an end ? ” 

“ Why, the Easter Speeches were put off till Mid- 
summer,” said Tom, “ and the sixth had the gymnas- 
tic poles put up here.” 

“ Well, and who changed the time of the Speeches, 
and put the idea of gymnastic poles into the heads 
of their worships the sixth form ? ’ ’ said the master. 

“The Doctor, I suppose,” said Tom. “I never 
thought of that.” 

“Of course you didn’t,” said the master, “or 
else, fag as you were, you would have shouted with 
the whole school against putting down old customs. 
And that’s the way that all the Doctor’s reforms 
have been carried out when he has been left to him- 
self — quietly and naturally, putting a good thing in 
the place of a bad, and letting the bad die out ; no 
wavering and no hurry — the best thing that could be 
done for the time being, and patience for the rest.” 

“Just Tom’s own way,” chimed in Arthur, nudg- 
ing Tom with his elbow, “ driving a nail where it will 
go; ” to which allusion Tom answered by a sly kick. 


334 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


^‘Exactly so,” said the master, innocent of the 
allusion and bye-play. 

Meantime Jack Raggles, with his sleeves tucked 
up above his great brown elbows, scorning pads and 
gloves; has presented himself at the wicket ; and 
having run one for a forward drive of Johnson’s, is 
about to receive his first ball. There are only 
twenty-four runs to make, and four wickets to go 
down ; a winning match if they play decently steady. 
The ball is a very swift one, and rises fast, catching 
Jack on the outside of the thigh, and bounding 
away as if from india-rubber, while they run two for 
a leg-bye amidst great applause, and shouts from 
Jack’s many admirers. The next ball is a beauti- 
fully pitched ball for the outer stump, which the 
reckless and unfeeling Jack catches hold of, and hits 
right round to leg for five, while the applause be- 
comes deafening : only seventeen runs to get with 
four wickets — the game is all but ours ! 

It is ‘‘over” now, and Jack walks swaggering 
about his wicket, with the bat over his shoulder, 
while Mr. Aislabie holds a short parley with his men. 
Then the cover-point hitter, that cunning man, goes 
on to bowl slow twisters. Jack waves his hand 
triumphantly towards the tent, as much as to say, 
“See if I don’t finish it all off now in three hits.” 

Alas, my son Jack ! the enemy is too old for thee. 
The first ball of the over Jack steps out and meets, 
swiping with all his force. If he had only allowed 
for the twist! but he hasn’t, and .so the ball goes 
spinning up straight into the air, as if it would never 
come down again. Away runs Jack, shouting and 
trusting to the chapter of accidents, but the bowler 
runs steadily under it, judging every spin, and call- 
ing out “I have it,” catches it, and playfully pitches 


THE FINISH. 


335 

it on to the back of the stalwart Jack, who is depart- 
ing with a rueful countenance. 

‘‘I knew how it would be,” says Tom, rising. 
“ Come along, the game’s getting very serious.” 

So they leave the island and go to the tent, and 
after deep consultation Arthur is sent in, and goes 
off to the wicket with a last exhortation from Tom 
to play steady and keep his bat straight. To the 
suggestions that Winter is the best bat left, Tom only 
replies, ‘‘Arthur is the steadiest, and Johnson will 
make the runs if the wicket is only kept up.” 

“ I am surprised to see Arthur in the eleven,” said 
the master, as they stood together in front of the dense 
crowd, which was now closing in round the ground. 

“ Well, I’m not quite sure that he ought to be in 
for his play,” said Tom, “but I couldn’t help put- 
ting him in. It will do him so much good, and you 
can’t think what I owe him.” 

The master smiled. The clock strikes eight, and 
the whole field becomes fevered with excitement. 
Arthur, after two narrow escapes, scores one; and 
Johnson gets the ball. The bowling and fielding are 
superb, and Johnson’s batting worthy the occasion. 
He makes here a two, and there a one, managing to 
keep the ball to himself, and Arthur backs up and 
runs perfectly : only eleven runs to make now, and 
the crowd scarcely breathe. At last Arthur gets the 
ball again, and actually drives it forward for two, and 
feels prouder than when he got the three best prizes, 
at hearing Tom’s shout of joy, “ Well played, well 
played, young un ! ” 

But the next ball is too much for a young hand, 
and his bails fly different ways. Nine runs to make, 
and two wickets to go down — it is too much for 
human nerves. 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


336 

Before Winter can get in, the omnibus which is to 
take the Lord’s men to the train pulls up at the side 
of the close, and Mr. Aislabie and Tom consult, and 
give out that the stumps will be drawn after the next 
over. And so ends the great match. Winter and 
Johnson carry out their bats, and, it being a one 
day’s match, the Lord’s men are declared the win- 
ners, they having scored the most in the first innings. 

But such a defeat is a victory : so think Tom and 
all the School eleven, as they accompany their con- 
querors to the omnibus, and send them off with three 
ringing cheers, after Mr. Aislabie has shaken hands 
all round, saying to Tom, “ I must compliment you, 
sir, on your eleven, and I hope we shall have you 
for a member if you come up to town.” 

As Tom and the rest of the eleven were turning 
back into the close, and everybody was beginning 
to cry out for another country-dance, encouraged by 
the success of the night before, the young master, 
who was just leaving the close, stopped him, and 
asked him to come up to tea at half- past eight, add- 
ing, I won’t keep you more than half-aii-hour, and 
ask Arthur to come up too.” 

‘^I’ll come up with you directly, if you’ll let me,” 
said Tom, ‘‘for I feel rather melancholy, and not 
quite up to the country-dance and supper with the 
rest.” 

“ Do by all means,” said the master; “ I’ll wait 
here for you.” 

So Tom went off to get his boots and things from 
the tent, to tell Arthur of the invitation, and to 
speak to his second in command about stopping the 
dancing and shutting up the close as soon as it grew 
dusk. Arthur promised to follow as soon as he had 
had a dance. So Tom handed his things over to the 


SHUT OUT. 


337 


man in charge of the tent, and walked quietly away 
to the gate where the master was waiting, and the 
two took their way together up the Hillmorton road. 

Of course they found the master’s house locked 
up, and all the servants away in the close, about this 
time no doubt footing it away on the grass with 
extreme delight to themselves, and in utter oblivion 
of the unfortunate bachelor their master, whose one 
enjoyment in the shape of meals was his “dish of 
tea” (as our grandmothers called it) in the evening; 
and the phrase was apt in his case, for he always 
poured his out into the saucer before drinking. 
Great was the good man’s horror at finding himself 
shut out of his own house. Had he been alone, he 
would have treated it as a matter of course, and 
would have strolled contentedly up and down his 
gravel-walk until some one came home ; but he was 
hurt at the stain on his character of host, especially 
as the guest was a pupil. However, the guest seemed 
to think it a great joke, and presently as they poked 
about round the house, mounted a wall, from which 
he could reach a passage window : the window, as it 
turned out, was not bolted, so in another minute 
Tom was in the house and down at the front door, 
which he opened from inside. The master chuckled 
grimly at this burglarious entry, and insisted on 
leaving the hall-door and two of the front windows 
open, to frighten the truants on their return ; and then 
the two set about foraging for tea, in which operation 
the master was much at fault, having the faintest 
possible idea of where to find anything, and being 
moreover wondrously short-sighted ; but Tom by a 
sort of instinct knew the right cupboards in the 
kitchen and pantry, and soon managed to place on 
the snuggery table better materials for a meal than 
22 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


338 

had appeared there probably during the reign of his 
tutor, who was then and there initiated, amongst 
other things, into the excellence of that mysterious 
condiment, a dripping-cake. The cake was newly 
baked, and all rich and flaky ; Tom had found it 
reposing in the cook’s private cupboard, awaiting 
her return ; and as a warning to her, they finished it 
to the last crumb. The kettle sang away merrily on 
the hob of the snuggery, for, notwithstanding the 
time of year, they lighted a fire, throwing both the win- 
dows wide open at the same time. The heap of books 
and papers were pushed away to the other end of the 
table, and the great solitary engraving of King’s 
College Chapel over the mantelpiece looked less 
stiff than usual, as they settled themselves down in 
the twilight to the serious drinking of tea. 

After some talk on the match, and other indif- 
ferent subjects, the conversation came naturally back 
to Tom’s approaching departure, over which he 
began again to make his moan. 

Well, we shall all miss you quite as much as you 
will miss us,” said the master. “ You are the Nestor 
of the School now, are you not? ” 

Yes, ever since East left,” answered Tom. 

“ By the bye, have you heard from him? ” 

‘‘Yes, I had a letter in February, just before he 
started for India to join his regiment.” 

“ He will make a capital officer.” 

“Aye, won’t he ! ” said Tom, brightening; “ no 
fellow could handle boys better, and I suppose soldiers 
are very like boys. And he’ll never tell them to go 
where he won’t go himself. No mistake about that — 
a braver fellow never walked.” 

“ His year in the sixth will have taught him a 
good deal that will be useful to him now.” 


EAST, 


339 


“So it will,” said Tom, staring into the fire. 
“Poor dear Harry,” he went on, “ how well I re- 
member the day we were put out of the twenty. 
How he rose to the situation, and burnt his cigar- 
cases, and gave away his pistols, and pondered on 
the constitutional authority of the sixth, and his new 
duties to the Doctor, and the fifth form, and the 
fags. Aye, and no fellow ever acted up to them 
better, though he was always a people’s man — for the. 
fags, and against constituted authorities. He couldn’t 
help that, you know. I’m sure the Doctor must 
have liked him? ” said Tom, looking up inquiringly. 

“ The Doctor sees the good in every one, and ap- 
preciates it,” said the master, dogmatically; “but I 
hope East will get a good colonel. He won’t do if 
he can’t respect those above him. How long it took 
him, even here, to learn the lesson of obeying.” 

“ Well, I wish I were alongside of him,” said Tom. 
“ If I can’t be at Rugby, I want to be at work in the 
world, and not dawdling away three years at Ox- 
ford.” 

“ What do you mean by ‘ at work in the world ? ’ ” 
said the master, pausing, with his lips close to his 
saucerful of tea, and peering at Tom over it. 

“ W^ll, I mean real work ; one’s profession ; what- 
ever one will have really to do, and make one’s liv- 
ing by. I want to be doing some real good, feeling 
that I am not only at play in the world,” answered 
Tom, rather puzzled to find out himself what he 
really did mean. 

“You are mixing up two very different things in 
your head, I think. Brown,” said the master, putting 
down the empty saucer, “ and you ought to get clear 
about them. You talk of ‘ working to get your liv- 
ing,’ and ‘doing some real good in the world,’ in 


340 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS, 


the same breath. Now, you may be getting a very 
good living in a profession, and yet doing no good 
at all in the world, but quite the contrary, at the 
same time. Keep the latter before you as your only 
object, and you will be right, whether you make a 
living or not ; but if you dwell on the other, you’ll 
very likely drop into mere money-making, and let 
;the world take care of itself for good or evil. Don’t 
'.be in a hurry about finding your work in the world 
for yourself; you are not old enough to judge for 
yourself yet, but just look about you in the place you 
find yourself in, and try to make things a little 
better and honester there. You’ll find plenty to 
keep your hand in at Oxford, or wherever else you 
go. And don’t be led away to think this part of the 
world important, and that unimportant. Every corner 
of the world is important. No man knows whether 
this part or that is most so, but every man may do 
some honest work in his own corner.” And then the 
good man went on to talk wisely to Tom of the sort 
of work which he might take up as an undergraduate ; 
and warned him of the prevalent University sins, 
and explained to him the many and great differences 
between University and School life ; till the twilight 
changed into darkness, and they heard the, truant 
servants stealing in by the back entrance. 

“ I‘ wonder where Arthur can be,” said Tom at 
last, looking at his watch ; “ why, it’s nearly half-past 
nine already.” 

“ Oh, he is comfortably at supper with the eleven, 
forgetful of his oldest friends,” said the master. 

Nothing has given me greater pleasure,” he went 
on, ‘^than your friendship for him ; it has been the 
making of you both.” 

“ Of me, at any rate,” answered Tom ; “ I should 


WORK IN THE WORLD. 


341 


never have been here now but for him. It was the 
luckiest chance in the world that sent him to Rugby, 
and made him my chum.” 

“Why do you talk of lucky chances?” said the 
master ; “ I don’t know that there are any such things 
in the world ; at any rate there was neither luck nor 
chance in that matter.” 

Tom looked at him inquiringly, and he went on. 
“ Do you remember when the Doctor lectured you 
and East at the end of one half-year, when you were 
in the shell, and had been getting into all sorts of 
scrapes ? ” • 

“ Yes, well enough,” said Tom ; “ it was the half- 
year before Arthur came.” 

“Exactly so,” answered the master. “Now, I 
was with him a few minutes afterwards, and he was 
in great distress about you two. And, after some 
talk, we both agreed that you in particular wanted 
some object in the School beyond games and mis- 
chief ; for it was quite clear that you never would 
make the regular school work your first object. ^ And 
so the Doctor, at the beginning of the next half-year, 
looked out the best of the new boys, and separated 
you and East, and put the young boy into your 
study, in the hope that when you had somebody to 
lean on you, you would begin to stand a little steadier 
yourself, and get manliness and thoughtfulness. And 
I can assure you he has watched the experiment ever 
since with great satisfaction. Ah ! not one of you 
boys will ever know the anxiety you have given him, 
or the care with which he has watched over every 
step in your school lives.” 

Up to this time, Tom had never wholly given in 
to or understood the Doctor. At first he had 
thoroughly feared him. For some years, as I have 


342 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


tried to show, he had learnt to regard him with love 
and respect, and to think him a very great and wise 
and good man. But, as regarded his own position in 
the School, of which he was no little proud, Tom had 
no idea of giving any one credit for it but him- 
self ; and, truth to tell, was a very self-conceited 
young gentleman on the subject. He was wont to 
boast that he had fought his own way fairly up the 
School, and had never made up to, or been taken up 
by any big fellow or master, and that it was now 
quite a different place from what it was when he first 
came. And, indeed, tfcough he didn’t actually boast 
of it, yet in his secret soul he did to a great extent 
believe, that the great reform in the School had been 
owing quite as much to himself as to any one else. 
Arthur, he acknowledged, had done him good, and 
taught him a good deal ; so had other boys in differ- 
ent ways, but they had not had the same means of 
influence on the School in general ; and as fort he 
Doctor, why, he was a splendid master, but every 
one knew that masters could do very little out of 
school hours. In short, he felt on terms of equality 
with his chief, so far as the social state of the School 
was concerned, and thought that the Doctor would 
find it no easy matter to get on without him. More- 
over, his school Toryism was still strong, and he 
looked still with, some jealousy on the Doctor, as 
somewhat of a fanatic in the matter of change ; and 
thought it very desirable for the School that he 
should have some wise person (such as himself) to 
look sharply after vested School-rights, and see that 
nothing was done to the injury of the republic with- 
out due protest. 

It was a new light to him to find, that, besides 
teaching the sixth, and governing and guiding the 


HERO. WORSHIP. 


343 

whole School, editing classics, and writing histories, 
the great Head-master had found time in those busy- 
years to watch over the career even of him, Tom 
Brown, and his particular friends, — and, no doubt, 
of fifty other boys at the same time ; and all this 
without taking the least credit to himself, or seeming 
to know, or let anyone else know, that he ever 
thought particularly of any boys at all. 

However, the Doctor’s victory was complete from 
that moment over Tom Brown at any rate. He gave 
way at all points, and the enemy 'marched right over 
him, cavalry, infantry, and artillery, the land trans- 
port corps, and the camp followers. It had taken 
eight long years to do it, but now it was done 
thoroughly, and there wasn’t a corner of him left 
which didn’t believe in the Doctor. Had he re- 
turned to school again, and the Doctor begun the 
half-year by abolishing fagging, and football, and 
the Saturday half-holiday, or all or any of the most 
cherished school institutions, Tom would have sup- 
ported him with the blindest faith. And so, after a 
half confession of his previous shortcomings, and 
sorrowful adieus to his tutor, from whom he received 
two beautifully bound volumes of the Doctor’s 
Sermons, as a parting present, he marched down to 
the School-house, a hero-worshipper, who would 
have satisfied the soul of Thomas Carlyle himself. 

There he found the eleven at high jinks after 
supper. Jack Raggles shouting comic songs, and per- 
forming feats of strength ; and was greeted by a 
chorus of mingled remonstrance at his desertion, and 
joy at his reappearance. And falling in with the 
humour of the evening, was soon as great a boy as 
all the rest; and at ten o’clock was chaired round 
the quadrangle, on one of the hall benches, borne 


344 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


aloft by the eleven, shouting in chorus, ‘‘For he’s 
a jolly good fellow,” while old Thomas, in a melting 
mood, and the other School-house servants, stood 
looking on. 

And the next morning after breakfast he squared 
up all the cricketing accounts, went round to his 
tradesmen and other acquaintance, and said his 
hearty good-byes, and by twelve o’clock was in the 
train, and away for London, no longer a school-boy ; 
and divided in his thoughts between hero-worship, 
honest regrets over the long stage of his life which 
was now slipping out of sight behind him, and hopes 
and resolves for the next stage, upon which he was 
entering with all the confidence of a young traveller 

o 

CHAPTER IX. 

FINIS. 

I N the summer of 1842, our hero stopped once again 
at the well-known station : and, leaving his bag 
and fishing-rod with a porter, walked slowly and 
sadly up towards the town. It was now July. He 
had rushed away from Oxford the moment that term 
was over, for a fishing ramble in Scotland with two 
college friends, and had been for three weeks living 
on oatcake, mutton-hams, and whiskey, in the 
wildest parts of Skye. They had descended one 
sultry evening on the little inn at Kyle Rhea ferry, 
and while Tom and another of the party put their 
tackle together and began exploring the stream for a 
sea-trout for supper, the third strolled into the house 
to arrange for their entertainment. Presently he 
came out in a loose blouse and slippers, a short pipe 


FINIS. 


345 


in his mouth, and an old newspaper in his hand, and 
threw himself on the heathery scrub which met the 
shingle, within easy hail of the fishermen. There he 
lay, the picture of free-and-easy, loafing, hand-to- 
mouth young England, ^‘improving his mind,” as he 
shouted to them, by the perusal of the fortnight-old 
weekly paper, soiled with the marks of toddy-glasses 
and tobacco-ashes, the legacy of the last traveller, 
which he had hunted out from the kitchen of the 
little hostelry; and being a youth of a communica- 
tive turn of mind, began imparting the contents to 
the fishermen as he went on. 

“ What a bother they are making about these 
wretched Corn-laws; here’s three or four columns 
full of nothing but sliding-scales and fixed duties. — 
Hang this tobacco, it’s always going out ! — Ah, 
here’s something better — a splendid match between 
Kent and England, Brown ! Kent winning by three 
wickets. Felix fifty-six runs without a chance, and 
not out ! ” 

Tom, intent on a fish which had risen at him 
twice, answered only with a grunt. 

“Anything about the Goodwood?” called out 
the third man. 

“ Rory-o-More drawn. Butterfly colt amiss,” 
shouted the student. 

“ Just my luck,” grumbled the inquirer, jerking 
his flies off the water, and throwing again with a 
heavy sullen splash, and frightening Tom’s fish. 

“I say, can’t you throw lighter over there ? we 
ain’t fishing for grampuses,” shouted Tom across 
the stream. 

“Hullo, Brown! here’s something for you,” 
called out the reading man next moment. “ Why, 
your old master, Arnold of Rugby, is dead. ’ ’ 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


346 

Tom’s hand stopped half-way in his cast, and his 
line and flies went all tangling round and round his 
rod ; you might have knocked him over with a 
feather. Neither of his companions took any notice 
of him luckily ; and with a violent eflbrt he set to 
work mechanically to disentangle his line. He felt 
completely carried off his moral and intellectual legs, 
as if he had lost his standing-point in the invisible 
world. Besides which, the deep loving loyalty which 
he felt for his old leader made the shock intensely 
painful. It was the first great wrench of his life, the 
first gap which the angel Death had made in his cir- 
cle, and he felt numbed, and beaten down, and spirit- 
less. Well, well ! I believe it was good for him and for 
many others in like case ; who had to learn by that 
loss, that the soul of man cannot stand or lean upon 
any human prop, however strong, and wise, and good ; 
but that He upon whom alone it can stand and lean 
will knock away all such props in His own wise and 
merciful way, until there is no ground or stay left but 
Himself, the Rock of Ages, upon whom alone a sure 
foundation for every soul of man is laid. 

As he wearily laboured at his line, the thought 
struck him, ‘‘It may all be false, a mere newspaper 
lie,” and he strode up to the recumbent smoker. 

“ Let me look at the paper,” said he. 

“ Nothing else in it,” answered the other, handing 
it up to him listlessly. — “ Hullo, Brown ! what’s the 
matter, old fellow — ain’t you well ? ” 

“Where is it?” said Tom, turning over the 
leaves, his hands trembling, and his eyes swimming, 
so that he could not read. 

“What? What are you looking for?” said his 
friend, jumping up and looking over his shoulder. 

“That — about Arnold,” said Tom. 


FINIS. 


347 


Oh, here,” said the other, putting his finger on 
the paragraph. Tom read it over and over again ; 
there could be no mistake of identity, though the 
account was short enough. 

“ Thank you,” said he at last, dropping the paper, 
shall go for a walk: don’t you and Herbert wait 
supper for me.” And away he strode, up over the 
moor at the back of the house, to be alone, and 
master his grief if possible. 

His friend looked after him, sympathizing and 
wondering, and, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, 
walked over to Herbert. After a short parley, they 
walked together up to the house. 

Tm afraid that confounded newspaper has spoiled 
Brown’s fun for this trip.” 

How odd that he should be so fond of his old 
master,” said Herbert. Yet they also were both 
public-school men. 

The two, however, notwithstanding Tom’s prohi- 
bition, waited supper for him, and had everything 
ready when he came .back some half-an-hour after- 
wards. But he could not join in their cheerful talk, 
and the party was soon silent, notwithstanding the 
efforts of all three. One thing only had Tom re- 
solved, and that was, that he couldn’t stay in Scot- 
land any longer ; he felt an irresistible longing to get 
to Rugby, and then home, and soon broke it to the 
others, who had too much tact to oppose. 

So by daylight the next morning he was marching 
through Ross-shire, and in the evening hit the Cale- 
donian canal, took the next steamer, and travelled 
as fast as boat and railway could carry him to the 
Rugby station. 

As he walked up to the town, he felt shy and afraid 
of being seen, and took the back streets; why, he 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


348 

didn’t know, but he followed his instinct. At the 
school-gates he made a dead pause ; there was not a 
soul in the quadrangle — all was lonely, and silent, 
and sad. So with another effort he strode through 
the quadrangle, and into the School-house offices. 

He found the little matron in her room in deep 
mourning ; shook her hand, tried to talk, and moved 
nervously about : she was evidently thinking of the 
same subject as he, but he couldn’t begin talking. 

“Where shall I find Thomas?” said he at last, 
getting desperate. 

“ In the servants’ hall, I think, sir. But won’t you 
take anything?” said the matron, looking rather 
disappointed. 

“ No, thank you,” said he, and strode off again to 
find the old Verger, who was sitting in his little den 
as of old, puzzling over hieroglyphics. 

He looked up through his spectacles, as Tom 
seized his hand and wrung it. 

“ Ah ! you’ve heard all about it, sir, I see,” said 
he. 

Tom nodded, and then sat down on the shoe- 
board, while the old man told his tale, and wiped 
his spectacles, and fairly flowed over with quaint, 
homely, honest sorrow. 

By the time he had done, Tom felt much better. 

“ Where is he buried, Thomas? ” said he at last. 

“ Under the altar in the chapel, sir,” answered 
Thomas. “You’d like to have the key, I dare say.” 

“ Thank you, Thomas — Yes, I should very much.” 
And the old man fumbled among his bunch, and 
then got up, as though he would go with him ; but 
after a few steps stopped short, and said, “ Perhaps 
you’d like to go by yourself, sir? ” 

Tom nodded, and the bunch of keys were handed 


FINIS.- 


349 

to him, with an injunction to be sure and lock the 
door after him, and bring them back before eight 
o’clock. 

He walked quickly through the quadrangle and 
out into the close. The longing which had been 
upon him and driven him thus far, like the gad-fly 
in the Greek legends, giving him no rest in mind or 
body, seemed all of a sudden not to be satisfied, but 
to shrivel up, and pall. “Why should I go on? 
It’s no use,” he thought, and threw himself at full 
length on the turf, and looked vaguely and listlessly 
at all the well-known objects. There were a few of 
the town boys playing cricket, their wicket pitched 
on the best piece in the middle of the big-side ground, 
a sin about equal to sacrilege in the eyes of a captain 
of the eleven. He was very nearly getting up to go 
and send them off. “ Pshaw ! they won’t remember 
me. They’ve more right there than I,” he muttered. 
And the thought that his sceptre had departed, and 
his mark was wearing out, came home to him 
for the first time, and bitterly enough. He was 
lying on the very spot where the fights came off ; 
where he himself had fought six years ago his first 
and last battle. He conjured up the scene till he 
could almost hear the shouts of the ring, and East’s 
whisper in his ear ; and looking across the close to 
the Doctor’s private door, half expected to see it 
open, and the tall figure in cap and gown come 
striding under the elm-trees towards him. 

No, no ! that sight could never be seen again. 
There was no flag flying on the round tower ! the 
School-house windows were all shuttered up : and 
when the flag went up again, and the shutters came 
down, it would be to welcome a stranger. All that 
was left on earth of him whom he had honoured. 


350 


TOM BROWNES SCHOOL DAYS. 


was lying cold and still under the Chapel floor. He 
would go in and see the place once more, and then 
leave it once for all. New men and new methods 
might do for other people ; let those who would 
worship the rising star ; he at least would be faithful 
to the sun which had set. And so he got up and 
walked to the chapel door and unlocked it, fancying 
himself the only mourner in all the broad land, and 
feeding on his own selfish sorrow. 

He passed through the vestibule, and then paused 
for a moment to glance over the empty benches. 
His heart was still proud and high, and he walked 
up to the seat which he had last occupied as a sixth- 
form boy, and sat himself down there to collect his 
thoughts. 

And, truth to tell, they needed collecting and set- 
ting in order not a little. The memories of eight 
years were all dancing through his brain, and carry- 
ing him about whither they would ; while beneath 
them all, his heart was throbbing with the dull sense 
of a loss that could never be made up to him. The 
rays of the evening sun came solemnly through the 
painted windows above his head, and fell in gorgeous 
colours on the opposite wall, and the perfect stillness 
soothed his spirit by little and little. And he turned 
to the pulpit, and looked at it, and then, leaning 
forward with his head on his hands, groaned aloud. 

If he could only have seen the Doctor again for 
one five minutes ; have told him all that was in his 
heart, what he owed to him, how he loved and 
reverenced him, and would by God’s help follow 
his steps in life and death, he could have borne it all 
without a murmur. But that he should have gone 
away for ever without knowing it all, was too much 
to bear.” But am I sure that he does not know 


FINIS. 


351 


it all ? ” — the thought made him start — May he not 
even now be near me, in this very chapel ? If he be, 
am I sorrowing as he would have me sorrow — as I 
should wish to have sorrowed when I shall meet him 
again ? ’ ’ 

He raised himself up and looked round ; and after 
a minute rose and walked humbly down to the low- 
est bench, and sat down on tlie very seat which he 
had occupied on his first Sunday at Rugby. And 
then the old memories rushed back again, but 
softened and subdued, and soothing him as he let 
himself be carried away by them. And he looked 
up at the great painted window above the altar, and 
remembered how when a little boy he used to try not 
to look through it at the elm-trees and the rooks, 
before the painted glass came — and the subscription 
for the painted glass, and the letter he wrote home 
for money to give to it. And there, down below, 
was the very name of the boy who sat on his right 
hand on that first day, scratched rudely in the oak 
paneling. 

And then came the thought of all his old school- 
fellows ; and form after form of boys, nobler, and 
braver, and purer than he, rose up and seemed to 
rebuke him. Could he not think of them, and what 
they had felt and were feeling, they who had hon- 
oured and loved from the first, the man whom 
he had taken years to know and love ? Could he not 
think of those yet dearer to him who was gone, who 
bore his name and shared his blood, and were now 
without a husband or a father? Then the grief which 
he began to share with others became gentle and 
holy, and he rose up once more, and walked up the 
steps to the altar ; and while the tears flowed freely 
down his cheeks, knelt down humbly and hopefully. 


352 


TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 


to lay down there his share of a burden which had 
proved itself too heavy for him to bear in his own 
strength. 

Here let us leave him — where better could we leave 
him, than at the altar, before which he had first caught 
a glimpse of the glory of his birthright, and felt the 
drawing of the bond which links all living souls to- 
gether in one brotherhood — at the grave beneath the 
altar of him, who had opened his eyes to see that 
glory, and softened his heart till it could feel that 
bond ? 

And let us not be hard on him, if at that moment 
his soul is fuller of the tomb and him who lies there, 
than of the altar and Him of whom it speaks. Such 
stages have to be gone through, I believe, by all 
young and brave souls, who must win their way 
through hero-worship, to the worship of Him who 
is the King and Lord of heroes. For it is only 
through our mysterious human relationships, through 
the love and tenderness and purity of mothers, and 
sisters, and wives, through the strength and courage 
and wisdom of fathers, and brothers, and teachers, 
that we can come to the knowledge of Him, in whom 
alone the love, and the tenderness, and the purity, 
and the strength, and the courage, and the wisdom 
of all these dwell for ever and ever in perfect fulness. 


THE END. 


Ube Bltcmus Xibtats. 


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